Derek DelGaudio's In & of Itself captures a solo stage performance built around one plain question: who am I. Filmed for streaming by director Frank Oz, the piece blends storytelling and sleight of hand into something closer to a meditation than a magic act.
What is Derek DelGaudio's In & of Itself about?
The film follows storyteller and conceptual magician Derek DelGaudio as he performs a one-man show exploring the layers people build around identity. Rather than showcasing tricks for their own sake, the show uses illusion as a tool for something more personal, asking audience members to consider how they define themselves before turning that same question back on its performer. Structured as a filmed record of the stage run, the documentary lets the performance speak largely for itself, following its rhythm from opening address to closing turn without narration imposed from outside. Guests who appear across different nights of the run add unscripted texture, their presence part of what makes each performance distinct even as the central question stays constant.
About the cast
Alongside DelGaudio, the guest list drawn from across the show's run includes Hal Schulman, Marina Abramović, Alexandra DelGaudio, David Blaine, Bill Gates, Tim Gunn and Brian Henson. Their appearances vary by night, part of the show's design rather than a fixed ensemble cast, and the film draws from multiple performances to assemble its final cut.
Context & significance
In & of Itself sits at the intersection of documentary and theatre, a 2020 release from the United States that runs 90 minutes. It belongs to a small run of filmed one-person shows that ask streaming audiences to sit with a single performer's voice for the full length of a piece, closer in spirit to a recorded stage production than a conventional documentary or biographical study. Genre labels of documentary and drama both apply loosely, since the film is neither pure record nor scripted fiction but something built for the stage first.
Watching Derek DelGaudio's In & of Itself on Ktime
K-Time carries In & of Itself with Persian dubbing and Persian subtitles, letting viewers follow DelGaudio's performance in a fully localized version or with the original English track subtitled in Farsi. As with the rest of the catalogue, watching requires a K-Time account login rather than a paid subscription, and the interface itself is built around a Farsi-first experience for the diaspora audience the service serves.