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Edinburgh Fringe 2022

Oracle: Do You Want to See The Future?

Lorenso 'Renz' Novani

Genre: Cabaret

Venue: theSpace on the Mile

Festival:


Low Down

A  mind-blowing hour of mentalism that entertains, shocks and captivates the audience.

Review

Mind-blowing.  Phenomenal.  Compelling.  Shocking.  How does he do it?  I have no idea.

Magician, dramatist, and mind-reader Lorenzo ‘Renz’ Novani presents Oracle: Do You Want to See The Future?   He involves audience members from the moment of entry into the theatre until the very end.  The routines include cards, notes in envelopes, games, and more.

The adventure begins on entry, where audience members are asked to write their vision for the future on a piece of paper, fold it, label it with their first name and last initial, and hand it over to an assistant carrying a black bag.  There is no indication of how these will be used.  Renz then kicks off the show by declaring that people will leave with insight into their lives, but must put rational thinking behind in order to see the future.  He shares a study that shows that one in five people have the gift of cognition, or seeing what is ahead.

Random people are selected to join Renz on stage with a game of Cards Against Humanity, a fill-in-the-blank party game that can turn an awkward personality into a fun participant.  They are asked to name a person, action and description.  The answers are funny.  Then they are given blank cards to write an answer that comes to mind given a question. Renz correctly guesses the contents of the card.  More volunteers come on stage to participate in tricks where cards that should be random are actually matched in front of the audience.

Trance music sets the scene as people are asked to imagine a calendar with a year in the future and what will take place at that time.  Everyone is handed paper to write a premonition, then told to put that in a small envelope, and throw it on stage. Those become the basis for another highly impressive correct predictor by Renz.

The final piece is the opening of the original papers that were handed out as people entered.  They have been folded and left in plain sight on stage throughout the show, so there was no way that he could have seen them in advance. My paper was randomly chosen.  He immediately guessed the correct month and wrote that on his board. He then worked on the location, moving from Europe to identifying my destination of Iceland.  Incredible.

I have worked with mentalists and magicians for decades. It is rare to see this intuitive talent.  There are so many head-shaking moments and shocking revelations throughout the program that we all leave absolutely mystified.  Not only is Renz highly skilled but he is funny and a terrific entertainer.

Published