Lee still looms over San AntonioĪs many as 12,000 people packed into the intersection to watch “the world’s foremost self-liberator … risk his life and his reputation just that they might be thrilled,” the Express reported. He escaped in just four minutes and nine seconds. 1, 1916, during a week-long performance, Houdini was suspended upside-down in a straitjacket next to the San Antonio Express newspaper, above the intersection of Crockett and Navarro streets. It also played the Rudolf Steiner Theatre in London in February 1993.On Feb. But I do know that it played at the Old Laundry Theatre in Bowness-on-Windermere, Cumbria in October and November 1992. I don't know how long the production ran. David De-Val was the escapology consultant. The play was directed by Keiran Gillespie with a score by Scottish composer Glenn Plukett. Fitzsimons says, "The dual personality gives the seduction scene between Margery and Houdini an intriguing psychological twist." David Cole played Margery's spirit guide Walter and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Sophy Ackroyd played Houdini's mother and Margery. Pocket Theater was limited to four actors, so some of the performers played multiple roles. In rumpled evening dress or bathing suit, he is the personification of Houdini." Bess was played by Amanda Macdonald. Of his lead Fitzsimons says, "I believe Peter was destined to play this role, for an addition to the physical likeness there is a spiritual infinity. Houdini was played by Peter Gerald (seen right striking THE pose). He is haunted by the fear that his escape techniques could be of supernatural origin. Success excites him, but it haunts him too. He succeeds in this ambition, and, in doing so, he becomes a legend, a symbol, a myth. He is also one of the most ambitious, expecting everyone who loves him – his wife, his mother, his brother – to play their part in helping him become the highest paid entertainer in vaudeville. In the play I portray Houdini as the bravest and most conceited man in the world. I wanted to write an enchanted play, a magical play about a man of mystery, a man of secrets. I had in mind an original play, an imaginative interpretation of Houdini's life, in which the natural and supernatural would intermingle. I had told Karen Gillespie, the artistic director, that I had no wish to dramatize my book. Their interest has been aroused reading my biography of Houdini, Death and the Magician. Pocket Theater is a small professional touring company, with a national reputation for innovative productions. Last January I was commissioned by Pocket Theater, Cumbria to write a play about Houdini. For the longest time I knew nothing about this play, other than that it existed because I had found a poster online (right).īut now John Lovick (aka Handsome Jack) has shared with me an article penned by Fitzsimons himself for a 1992 Magic Circular that finally provided some details. It begins: Fitzsimons also wrote the 1981 Houdini biography, Death and the Magician, which has the distinction of being the only new Houdini biography published in the 1980s. In the early 1990s a Houdini play ran in the UK called Houdini's Death Defying Mystery written by Raymund Fitzsimons.
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