The Theater of Science
Last week, Dylan, Katie and I set down our Guitar Hero controllers for a few hours and headed out to one of only four days of The Theater of Science. We didn't know anything about it, hearing only that it was being compared to the Victorian "tradition in which audiences attended the theatre to see scientific demonstrations as entertainment." And it was just that. Only a little over an hour long, the show came over to us from England, with an experimental psychologist and former professional magician, Professor Richard Wiseman, and physicist and popular science author, Dr. Simon Singh (author of 'Fermat's Enigma' and 'Big Bang') as our Mc's. There was also an English contortionist who gave a demonstration of her bendy spine, her short show ending in stuffing herself into a small box (truthfully, I saw a better body-in-box-stuffing act while waiting in line for the Circle Line ferry that takes tourists to the Statue of Liberty...in fact, I saw all sorts of fantastic acts while in the line for 2.5 hours).
But besides the contortionist, who really wasn't all that bad, the show was a lot of fun. It felt a lot like Bill Nye the Science Guy for grownups. They electrocuted a pickle. There was slight of hand and card tricks. There were optical illusions and quick comedic science lessons. Both Wiseman and Singh had the audience laughing the whole time, and were great at keeping us involved and interested. Most of the show was about what a person can convince himself is true, and being able to only see that, tricking your mind. It was fascinating, and it was fun.
The grand finale was a demonstration with two Tesla Coils (I'm pretty sure Dylan had a boner the whole time), where one of our hosts sat in a small metal cage between the two tesla coils while they shot a bazillion volts of electricity at him (I can't remember how many volts, but it was pretty close to a bazillion). I've seen this done on a bigger scale at the Boston Museum of Science, with even bigger Tesla Coils, but it was much more terrifying here, because the cage was not a fancy pants human sized bird cage type thing like at the Museum, it was a dinky chicken coop looking thing that they had constructed that day, and had never been used for the purpose of protecting someone from a bazillion volts before. Not only that, we were sitting very close to the action, much closer than anyone was allowed at the museum. So even though I'd seen this experiment before, and knew it pretty well, there was a great element of fear that something would go wrong. It was wonderful.
It was a fun evening and made me very nostalgic for a type of entertainment I haven't had much exposure to, a type of entertainment that most of us haven't. I wish there were more chances to spend an evening bonding with your fellow audience over captivating preformers and compelling demonstrations.
where did you find them??? will they come to los angeles??? SCIENCE RULES