The stage remains lit as audience members walk in. The small theater is filled through the balcony, floor and mezzanine. An ace of spades is projected behind a wooden stage, completed with three tables: one with a pyramid of cards, the other empty, and the third with four brown bags.

A man enters, immediately breaking the fourth wall and interacting with the audience. Brett Schneider, who plays the Magician, and a real magician himself, showcases the classic magician’s card tricks we all remember from childhood: cards disappear, reappearing, an impressive shuffling of the deck.

He seems like an average man, a normal magician playing through a show he has performed 100 times, yet the show takes a quick, confusing turn as audience members are shown the torment running through this magician’s mind, provided by his ex-boyfriend, played by Sean Parris. The audience becomes a part of the magician’s life, learning about his childhood with his father who abandoned him, as played by Francis Guinan, and the continual loss in his life.

Schneider moves the play forward, with the bulk of the show being his own monologues, he impressively makes the show seem natural and completely unscripted.

“In order to truly amaze an audience, and create a sense of intimacy and true human connection, you must have complete control,” narrates Schneider. “But offstage, if you can’t relinquish that control, and simply give in to all the spontaneity and magic of real life, everything can come crashing down.”

The play deeply dissects the magician, narrowing him down to solely a person with issues of control. Suddenly, from being at a magic show, audience members are thrusted into the magician’s mind. An argument breaks out between the magician and his boyfriend, the boyfriend stating that it’s all perspective when looking at a relationship. Sure, it may seem cute he wants to know about his boyfriend’s whereabouts, cute that he brings him lunch during every diving practice, but the real issue was the magician having no trust. He brings the lunches, asks the questions, all so that he knows who his boyfriend is talking to, knows what he is doing.

The two love each other, make each other feel as if they are flying, but the issues beneath it all are shown to the audience through their arguments.

The show began and ended with the familiar magic show, but in between a story unraveled behind the magic presented in front of you. You discover why the magician is a magician, you witness him reliving his heart being broken, and you are introduced to the most troubled and vulnerable parts of his life. You don’t learn any of the techniques or tricks behind the magic, but you learn the truth behind the magician.

What is the most intriguing and exciting part of the show is audience. Taking four audience members as volunteers for different acts and continually talking to the audience.

The magic was an exciting, fun aspect. The script was powerful and emotional. Attending a show that I thought would be based around trivial magic, I found my eyes welling with tears. The cast of three made me feel connected to the magic.

The theme is a familiar one: love and the magic behind it. In the end, every audience member is brought together, the magic moves past the fourth wall and the audience is asked to wish for something that only magic could grant. These wishes, sent by a girl with bright pink hair, elderly couples with matching glasses, mothers, fathers, students, who all filled with theater, are projected for all to see.

Audience members gasped and had no words when they found the exact thing they wished for: “Irene to be blonde,” “Pearl to live forever,” “Forgiveness,” “Happiness.” Proving, in the end, that we all wish for a little magic. As I left the Goodman, I could not hide a smile. The wishes from the audience were on display, written on playing cards, for all to read.

The reminder that we all have wants and needs and hope for a bit of magic in our lives left each audience member feeling united and with a feeling of universality.

“The Magic Play” runs through Nov. 20 at the Goodman Theatre, only $10 on Wednesdays for college students with a valid ID.