The card is face down on my palm, and I’m watching it very closely. The small, warm lounge is dimly lit by golden candlelight and animated with friendly chatter and excited laughter. Fresh, steaming-hot Thai takeout from the neighboring restaurant is ushered to the tables and fills the air with a spicy aroma. The bartender shakes up a specialty cocktail with a cunning sleight of the wrist. It’s a regular Thursday night at The Black Rabbit Rose, and Michael, the close-up magician floating around the bar that night, is showing me his closing trick. I’m having some chicken dumplings and a drink before the main show starts, a revolving mix of comedy, burlesque, live jazz and of course magic that will play out just a few feet below us, in a secret speakeasy.
“Now, go ahead and tell me. What card do you have?” he asks with the only warm smirk you’ll ever see. Easy, this red ten of hearts hasn’t left my palm once. I flip the card with steady fingers, and suddenly, sitting there atop my own palm is an eight of diamonds with my name in Sharpie written across it. I flip it back down in disbelief and the ruby red design on the back is now blue.
Magic is real.
This is something you start to consider as soon as you walk through that black velvet curtain on the corner of Hollywood Boulevard. There is a magical air that Black Rabbit Rose harnesses, from the guard at the door to the waitress bringing your drinks; everything is candy-coated in comfort, while operating with class and mystery. And the night hasn’t even started yet.
Soon enough, a small group of us with tickets to the show are slyly ushered out from the lounge, behind a curtain, and through grand hallways. This short journey is the beginning of a unique bonding experience that will occur between the classroom-sized group over the course of the night. Every single guest is special, treated with attention, and known to all by the show’s end. It’s a kind of sociability I haven’t felt with a group of strangers since the fifth grade. Just when we seemed to reach the dead end of the long hallway, the heavy grandfather clock to our right opened up from the wall, and revealed one of the most authentic speakeasies I’ve seen yet. The intimate 40-seat theater through this literal hole in the wall is dimly lit with warm candlelight and manufactured with false walls, trick lighting and shaking floors, all of which were used throughout the 55-minute show.
What happens in this room, I wish I could tell you. All I can say is, I returned to that small, warm lounge with a face sore from smiling, a newfound belief in magic and love for this city. Like Hollywood, there is nothing predictable about this mystical venue; it is so many things all at once. The lounge combines the simple novelty of late-night Thai take-out with luxurious specialty cocktails and a high-class, yet intimate and welcoming setting. It has an antique feel, includes ’40s jazz performances, and encourages a sociability among strangers that feels Jurassic in our post-pandemic world. However, it also offers something brand new to the city, magic with unexpected innovation and all the trappings of a viral spot, including visually appealing pitch-black cocktails made from activated charcoal, a photo booth and an astute attention to aesthetics. Just when you think it’s one thing, it surprises you, managing a mystifying and complex experience you simply cannot find anywhere else. I’ve been to my share of Los Angeles burlesque, comedy and magic shows—and they’re always a hoot—but because you always know what you’re going to get. At the Black Rabbit Rose, you somehow get all three, while also getting something completely different.
This place is like that mind-boggling card Michael placed face down on my palm at the start of the night. Just when I felt as though I had it right there, certain and figured out, it changed before my very eyes, exceeding my expectations and leaving me with no other choice but to relinquish any understanding I thought I had and allow myself to be mesmerized.
It’s sort of like Hollywood in that way, and maybe some of the LA enchantment that gets lost over time, like your socks in the dryer, gets sucked up here, like a capsule for magic once lost. So, if the city lights and stars on Hollywood Boulevard ever lose their spark, just turn right down Hudson Street and reignite the flame at Black Rabbit Rose.
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Featured Image Photographed by Aaron Fu/BruinLife
