[NEohioPAL] REVIEW: Theatre of Magic at Canton Players Guild Theatre

[Tom Wachunas via NEohioPAL]

Howdaydoodat?
By Tom Wachunas
 
    “Magicians have done controlled testing in
human perception for thousands of years.” –Teller

   I still remember
the morning when I graduated from being a wavering believer in Santa Claus
(around 2nd grade, I think) to the sadly disillusioned child who
knew better once and for all. Before going to bed one Christmas Eve, I had
written a plaintive letter to the jolly elf (asking for his autograph, among
other things), sealed it in an envelope addressed with big crayon letters, and
clandestinely taped it to the inside of our chimney in a place he couldn’t
possibly miss. And there it still was in the morning, untouched. I had a blue
Christmas without him. So much for magic.
    Fast forward some
30 years to an eight-week course I took in learning how to do magic. Most of
the curriculum focused on sleight of hand card tricks and making small objects
disappear. I was a fairly poor performer at best, and once again I emerged from
the experience sure that there really wasn’t any magic in magic. I did however
acquire a deeper appreciation of the demanding discipline needed to smoothly
manage not only my own hands, but audience perceptions – the art of
misdirection - as well.
    These memories
kept resurfacing as I watched the Theatre
of Magic show unfold on the Players Guild Theatre mainstage. The stars of
the evening are Joshua Erichsen, Producing Artistic Director of the Players
Guild Theatre, and internationally renowned mentalist Angela Funovits, slated
to star in the SYFY Channel competition series, “Wizard Wars,” alongside the
legendary Penn and Teller, and scheduled to premiere on August 19.
    Erichsen’s
illusions are of a more intimate scale than say, David Copperfield’s vanishing
of the Statue of Liberty, though no less convincing, including one wherein he
apparently amputates his forearm in an act of what he calls “bloodless
surgery.” And there is the occasional sense of “standard fare” about the show,
as in his Houdini-esque escape from a straightjacket while suspended upside
down on a burning rope. Yet the spectacle’s hold-your-breath tension is still
thrilling to experience.
    Erichsen’s impressivel “bag of tricks” is also
woven with plenty of humor and sight gags. At one hilarious juncture, he takes
on the role of the student of magic, learning to execute an illusion by
listening to step-by-step instructions dictated by the virtual assistant web
app, Siri. As she tells him how to fold abandana, a perplexed-looking Erichsen has apparently heard banana. Undaunted, he proceeds with
fruit in hand and…Well, you’ll just have to come and see for yourself.
    It’s interesting
to note that Angela Funovits is also a medical doctor. So it’s not so
surprising to hear her tell the audience that as a mentalist, she regards her
feats as a kind of scientific probing, dismissing the notion of “psychic” or
cosmic powers at work. In any event, her stage-side manner, as it were, is
amiable, fetching and magnetic as she sets up the parameters of her
brain-confounding experiments with audience volunteers, often prefacing her
instructions with, “This may sound strange, but…” Strange indeed, and call it
what you will – mindreading, fortunetelling, old fashioned sorcery - the
outcomes are invariably astonishing.   
    So while I may
have attended the show as a cynic, looking for chinks in the armor of staged
illusion and so-called psychic phenomena, I left delightedly spellbound and
otherwise duly mystified. Theatre of
magic, to be sure. Lavish legerdemain, perfected prestidigitation, oh what a
wondrous web we weave when first we practice…   Where else can we go to have our trusted
senses of reality so wildly manipulated and challenged… and genuinely enjoy it? There’s the magic. 

   THEATRE
OF MAGIC, at Canton Players Guild Theatre, 1001 Market Avenue N, with
performances Friday June 27 at 8:00
pm and Saturday June 28 at 2:00 and 8:00 pm. Tickets for this Mainstage show are
$20 for adults and $15 for those 17 and younger. Tickets for may be purchased
online 24 hours a day at www.playersguildtheatre.com or in person at the Players Guild Box
Office, located in the Great Court of the Cultural Center for the Arts, 1001
Market Ave N. Tickets may also be purchased by phone: 330-453-7617.
    For other
commentaries by Tom Wachunas on the arts in the greater Canton area, please
visit his blog, ARTWACH, at  www.artwach.blogspot.com
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