Magic’s reappearing act brings illusion back to stage and screen
By John Wenzel for the Denver Post..
Magic doesn’t get much respect. In TV and movies, it’s often portrayed as a corny, delusional art whose practitioners produce only crushed doves, puddles of unignited lighter fluid and snickers.
But this belies magic’s centuries-long evolution from a trick of mystics and shamans to a popular entertainment in theaters and on television.
From Harry Houdini and David Copperfield to Burt Wonderstone and Criss Angel, it’s either been high art or a joke, a thrilling suspension of disbelief or the pre-cake entertainment at a kiddie birthday party.
At the moment, it’s all of those things.