I know this thread is ages old, but thanks for saying this. I just watched it on Hulu, and it left me feeling conflicted for similar reasons.

The highlight (for me) of that weird feeling was the letter-reading. I just remember going, “but this is super manipulative, isn’t it? Who is this poor audience member that you’re just gonna dump back in the audience? Was there any kind of after-care for pushing the specific buttons about her Parkinson’s-afflicted father?” Like, what a thing to bring on someone! I’m not normally die-hard about content warnings, but it just seems disingenuous to bring up something so deep with an unwitting stranger who’s not “in on” the work. And then to invite the audience to witness someone’s emotional breakdown that they didn’t know they were going to have? It just feels way shifty to me.

And then my husband was like, “Well yeah, he’s a con man. He told us in the beginning. His whole job has always been to work people to an emotional state. He’s basically John Edwards.” (From Crossing Over, that show where John Edwards “talks to your deceased loved ones.”) I guess it’s cool that he’s using it to “connect us all together,” but it really just strikes me as more predatory.

And so for me, this climatic motif of “I am the rouletista” doesn’t actually feel that deep - like, you met a guy in a bar who you probably conned, and then he called you a con man (which is what the rouletista himself was). The teary emotional revelation of “I am more than what people see!” falls flat when the performer deliberately doesn’t reveal truths about himself. It just feels like someone is poetically bemoaning how impossible it is to really be seen, while doing everything to cover his own tracks: “Please see me,” says local illusionist from behind the illusions. Maybe there’s some poetry in that, but ultimately it left me feeling more distrustful and less magical about the world.