An illusionist will celebrate Harry Houdini throughout October with escape acts and a seance.
Illusionist Sean-Paul stars in Intrigue Theater, a spiritually themed show set in the Victorian era, which predates the time of Houdini by 10-15 years. He says there are common themes between the storyline of his show and the career of Houdini. The magician died on Halloween night, so it makes it “very timely for us to celebrate the career of Harry Houdini in October in Eureka Springs.”
Houdini’s escapes are the acts for which he became famous. He started doing them when he was on the vaudeville circuit, then he realized that he could do escapes in a larger, more public, outdoor spectacular manner, Sean-Paul says.
“They would chain him up, put him in a box, nail it shut and throw it in the river, and he would escape.”
Other magicians tried to copy Houdini in a feat he created called the milk can escape, and several died.
“The danger in his escapes was real,” Sean-Paul says.
Sean-Paul will perform the milk can escape as well as the suspended straitjacket escape. He says the editor of The Lovely County Citizen newspaper saw his show and has a great interest in magicians from the past century, so he made a formal challenge, asking Sean-Paul to do the suspended straitjacket escape. Houdini would receive challenges from the newspapers in every town where he performed, and Sean-Paul says they’re “trying to re-enact the wholeprocess including getting the formal challenge from the newspaper.”
The escape will be performed at noon Thursday. Someone will put on the straitjacket just prior to Sean-Paul to verify it is a real straitjacket, he says. He will then be hoisted upside down by his feet in the straitjacket, hanging off the observation deck of the Crescent Hotel in Eureka Springs. He says he won’t be released until he escapes.
“I don’t want to be hanging upside down any longer than I have to be. I will be gettingout of it as quickly as I can,” he says.
He adds it is rare to see someone perform this act from a height of 50 to 70 feet.
Sean-Paul has done escapes before as part of his show, but nothing on the level of this escape. He has performed the straitjacket escape for 20 years, however.
“I’ve just never done it upside down, certainly not 70 feet up in the air,” he says.
One reason the Crescent Hotel was chosen as the location is because it is alleged to be haunted, and people have fallen to theirdeaths from the building.
“It kind of creeps me out to even talk about it,” he says.
“There’s something to be said about tempting fate.”
Sean-Paul will then perform the milk can escape at 7 p.m.
Oct. 20 at Basin Spring Park.
The 70-year-old, 40-gallon milk can will be inspected by the audience inside and out.
It will be filled with water, and he will be handcuffed and put inside it before the lid is sealed with padlocks.
“Before I submerge, I’m going to ask everybody in the audience to take a deep breath and hold their breath as the lid is put on the top of the milk can,” he says.
Sean-Paul will displace the water when he gets in, so the water will come up to the top before it is sealed. He says he can hold his breath for around 90 seconds. He has never performed this escape publicly.
The final performance will be a show with Intrigue Theater segments such as a past life regression experiment and a voodoo demonstration, Houdiniinspired segments and a seance on Halloween night in the Crystal Ballroom atthe Crescent Hotel. Houdini wanted to reach out to his mother after she died, but he did not believe mediums could really contact people after death, deciding to spend the last 13 years of his life exposing fraudulent mediums who were deceiving people and extorting money.
However, this didn’t mean “he still didn’t want to believe that it was somehow possible,” Sean-Paul says.
Whats Up, Pages 18 on 09/28/2012