The nerve of Minerva lives on in magical new play
The name Houdini still hovers over the world of magic – almost 100 years after his death. The master of “escapology” took the hocus pocus out of the ancient prerogatives of priests and charlatans and turned it into show business gold. Houdini ruled over Broadway, Vaudeville and musical halls. So much so that names such as Thurston and Keller, who also practiced the “black arts” (and many others), are long forgotten.
As is Minerva – Queen of the Handcuffs – the play of the same name at the Roxy on Gateway until Jan. 27.
There weren’t many females in the exotic prestidigitational landscape of the time but Minerva carved out quite a successful career – mostly by aping the illusions of the master. She, too, put on the cuffs and jumped off bridges. At one point she was handcuffed by the Chief of Police and then, before 2,000 astonished onlookers, jumped off the Blue Bridge into the Potomac River. She escaped in the dark, from jails, coffins and bags. Her set-piece was the famous “Water Filled Barrel Escape,” in which, shackled and handcuffed, she was sealed into a wooden barrel filled with water.
But as a woman she constantly had to overcome stiff resistance from the male-dominated field. One phrase kept popping up, “You’re only a woman and no one will take you seriously anyway.” Apparently at one time Houdini, who resented her incursions into his world, paid some louts to put acid in her water barrel and she was badly burned.
Edmonton magician Ron Pearson has decided that it was time for Minerva to take her rightful place in the pantheon of great escape artists and has written a play about her. And who better? For over 30 years, Pearson has been inescapable in Edmonton streets and theatres. He’ll play to any size audience from sales meetings to filled theatres in New York. I’ve caught his act several times as he amazed kids (and families) at birthday parties. The last time was in the dark with an invisible deck of cards at Fort Edmonton’s Halloween show. He also has a track record in the theatre, having penned a number of plays.
For Minerva – Queen of the Handcuffs, Pearson is going first class. The show is part of the Roxy Performance Series and is directed by the theatre’s distinguished artistic director, Bradley Moss. The show also benefits from the Roxy’s first-rate house crew which includes Scott Peters’ lighting design, Tessa Stamp’s costumes and sound design, and music from Darrin Hagen.
The choice of leading lady is interesting. The play features Miranda Allen, who is a superlative performer (you may remember her compelling Sterling-nominated performance as Lizzie in last year’s Pretty Goblins). She brings to Minerva an international reputation as a real-life escape artist. Also featured is Richard Lee Hsi who plays a deck of characters: husband, hypnotist, judge and Houdini.
The story is generated by the times – and is a look at a woman who bucked chauvinist attitudes to make her own way. It begins when Minerva begins to doubt herself after “Houdini’s people” put that acid in her water drum and darn near killed her. Pearson uses the device of having her visit a hypnotist when she becomes too afraid to perform her act. She tells her own story during the sessions. Allen plays her as a spunky lass, approachable, likeable and right at home in front of an audience. When she’s told she’ll be blackballed if she doesn’t yield to the sexual advances of a snaky dude who owns an amusement Park, she shows up each night for her act, and when she doesn’t get paid she sues the jerk. And wins. Twice.
Houdini, who in the hands of Lee Shi turns out to be a silken, passive-aggressive philistine, hounds her (hence the acid bath), and she still becomes a huge international star.
Along the way, this being a show of illusions, Pearson and Moss have sprinkled a series of real escapes – handcuffs, Scotland Yard thumb cuffs and a dramatic three-minute escape from a “straight jacket for the criminally insane.” They’re all performed as they might be in a Vaudeville show and will leave you amazed. At the end, in a hypnotic dream, Minerva challenges Houdini to a final confrontation – leading to a spectacular escape from a locked wooden box. You’ll see it but you won’t believe your eyes. Minerva lives these nights at the Roxy Theatre.
Two amiable and approachable performers, an uplifting story of a high-spirited, self-empowering plucky woman and a whole series of mystifying illusions make for one really entertaining evening.
Photos by Marc J. Chalifoux
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