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</font></div><div align="center" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: center;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><font face="Verdana">Howdaydoodat?</font></b></div><div><font face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div align="center" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: center;"><font face="Verdana">By Tom Wachunas</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><font face="Verdana"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“Magicians have done controlled testing in
human perception for thousands of years.” </b>–Teller</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><font face="Verdana"><br></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><font face="Verdana"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I still remember
the morning when I graduated from being a wavering believer in Santa Claus
(around 2<sup>nd</sup> 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.</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><font face="Verdana"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><font face="Verdana"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These memories
kept resurfacing as I watched the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Theatre
of Magic </i>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.</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><font face="Verdana"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><font face="Verdana"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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 a<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">
bandana, </i>a perplexed-looking Erichsen has apparently heard <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">banana.</i> Undaunted, he proceeds with
fruit in hand and…Well, you’ll just have to come and see for yourself.</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><font face="Verdana"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><font face="Verdana"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Theatre</i> of
magic, to be sure. Lavish legerdemain, perfected prestidigitation, oh what a
wondrous web we weave when first we practice… <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Where else can we go to have our trusted
senses of reality so wildly manipulated and challenged… and genuinely <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">enjoy </i>it? <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">There’s </i>the magic. </font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><font face="Verdana"><br></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><font face="Verdana"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">THEATRE
OF MAGIC</b></i>, at Canton Players Guild Theatre, 1001 Market Avenue N, with
performances <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Friday June 27</b> at 8:00
pm and <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Saturday</b> <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">June 28</b> 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 </font><a href="http://www.playersguildtheatre.com/"><font face="Verdana">www.playersguildtheatre.com</font></a><font face="Verdana">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><font face="Verdana"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For other
commentaries by Tom Wachunas on the arts in the greater Canton area, please
visit his blog, ARTWACH, at<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></font><a href="http://www.artwach.blogspot.com/"><font face="Verdana">www.artwach.blogspot.com</font></a><font face="Verdana"> </font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman">
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