He enters the show suspended from a chain upside-down in a straitjacket. The charismatic Watkins mystifies with multiple tricks and feats. "Who better to embody Houdini than Chicago’s favorite magician, Dennis Watkins? Third generation magician Watkins is on hiatus from his own show, The Magic Parlour at Palmer House, to resurrect the role he debuted in 2001. “Death and Harry Houdini” (The House Theatre): Be Astonished This Summer!. As for the magic: though it loses the sense of raw wonder in a theatrical setting, it's accomplished with enormous cunning, elegance, and skill". Basically a magic show nestled in a biography, the production recounts Houdini's life in the graphic-novel style the House has long favored, veering between the cartoonishness of Houdini's gibberish-spouting mama (rendered endearing despite her decades-long bad mood by Marika Mashburn) and a spectral, top-hatted embodiment of Death. Now it's back for the House's 15th anniversary, with solid vital signs and perennial Houdini Dennis Watkins back in his water-torture cell. It introduced the House Theatre of Chicago to Chicago in 2001, received a remount in 2003, then ran again in 2012 and '13. "Nathan Allen's play about the legendary escape artist has already cheated death a few times. But it's a whole lot more fun to watch this re-creation of Houdini's most famous escape with your nose almost pressed up to the glass walls.ĭeath & Harry Houdini - Tony Adler, 5/18/16.
Unlike, say, a casino show from David Copperfield, the House performs in an intimate setting with the audience on two si des, which makes things more difficult for any illusionist. I was a big fan of "Death and Harry Houdini" during its first Chicago run in 2013, not least because any self-respecting tribute to that incomparable master of prestidigitation must include an accurate and authentic rendering of his great illusions, especially his escape from the infamous Chinese Water Torture Cell, a feat of daring that dates back more than 100 years.ĭennis Watkins - and, let us be honest: there could and would be no "Death and Harry Houdini" without Watkins - offers up that aquatic deed in full, along with an assortment of card tricks, sawings-in-half, levitations and the like. But the House Theatre of Chicago's intimate, illusion-filled tribute to the justly celebrated scion of Appleton, Wis., is back in town. "The planned Broadway musical about Harry Houdini remains stalled. Highly Recommended - 'Harry Houdini' is back in Chicago, and the magic still wows - Chris Jones, Chicago Tribune 5/17/16.
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