Swallowing Needles and Disappearing Elephants? Learn the Making Behind Penn & Teller’s Magic!
By Harry Haun for Playbill..
Penn & Teller, the acclaimed magic-making duo, are back on Broadway for the third time, with a collection of their old favorites and stunning new tricks.
It wouldn’t be prudent to pack a cell phone if you plan to catch Penn & Tellerat the Marriott Marquis July 7-Aug. 16. At every performance, some poor patron is relieved of his-or-hers, but it surfaces later in the show — in an unlikely (and ungodly) place.
Top hats aren’t advisable, either. “Pulling a rabbit out of a hat is the cliché of magic — a figure of speech, really — but, in 60 years of magic, I have never seen that,” admits the mononymous Teller, and he intends to correct that oversight with this show. “I thought maybe there’s a reason I haven’t — and there is: you need a hat big enough to contain a rabbit. You can’t pull that out of a baseball cap or a cowboy hat. You need a top hat, and, for it to be convincing, you have to borrow a top hat. You can’t just drag your own on stage because people just figure there’s a gimmick to it.”
