Performing Magic on the Western Stage: From the Eighteenth Century to the Present (Palgrave Studies in Theatre and Performance History) [Hardcover]

Lawrence Hass (Editor), Francesca Coppa (Editor), James Peck (Editor), Eugene Burger (Foreword)

Book Description

Series: Palgrave Studies in Theatre and Performance History | Publication Date: December 9, 2008

Performing Magic on the Western Stage examines magic as a performing art and meaningful social practice. The essays in this interdisciplinary collection analyze the work of numerous western theatrical conjurers and several non-western magical performances in their historical context. Throughout, the contributors link magic to cultural arenas such as religion, finance, gender, and nationality. All of the contributors are connected to the internationally acclaimed Theory and Art of Magic program at Muhlenberg College, through which artists and scholars study the history, theory, and practice of the magical arts.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“The product of intense preparation by scholars and teachers trained in theatre, film, media, dance, philosophy, anthropology, literature, religion, psychiatry and, of course, magic itself, Performing Magic on the Western Stage skillfully conjures the interdisciplinary powers of performance studies to achieve an apparently impossible feat:  an edited collection in which every contribution is equally strong and equally necessary.”--Joseph Roach, Sterling Professor of Theater, Yale University

"Performing Magic on the Western Stage offers a much-needed and carefully compiled anthology of essays addressing some of the most important questions that have emerged out of the recent explosion of academic interest in staged magic. Drawing on work from a wide variety of fields, including Theater and Performance Studies, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Cinema and Media Studies, Philosophy, and Anthropology, the essays collected here examine how staged magic shapes and exposes our relation to: otherness; class mobility; gender, sexuality, nationality and ethnicity; secrecy; disability; community; entertainment; ritual and religion; capitalism and money; self-deception; and the figure of the magician. This volume takes magic seriously as a meaningful art form, and explores its changing significance in specific historical and geographical locations.  The collection brings together a wealth of original archival and field research, and initiates a series of interdisciplinary conversations that need to be continued.  We learn, among other things, of the continued importance of the magician in film history long after the heyday of “the cinema of attractions”; of how contemporary bad-boy magicians like Penn and Teller pave the way for alternative relations among the magician, the assistant and the audience; of the relationship between William Robinson’s yellow-faced performances of Ching Ling Soo and Chinese magician Chee Ling Qua (a.k.a. Ching Ling Foo); and of the range of magicians—including transgressive tricksters, retro-sexists, escape artists and clairvoyants—who provoke audiences to widen their eyes in wonder or roll them tiredly, as though the time of magic had passed.  Yet as Coppa, Hass and Peck make clear, magic’s time has only just begun.”--Karen Beckman, Jaffe Associate Professor of the History of Art at the University of Pennsylvania and author of Vanishing Women: Magic, Film and Feminism

 

"The volume evidences a running tension between conflicting definitions: magic as illusion or deception versus magic as occult phenomenon or alternative religion . . . a useful and informative collection."--Choice

About the Author

Francesca Coppa is Director of Film Studies and Associate Professor of English at Muhlenberg College.

Lawrence Hass is Professor of Philosophy and Theatre at Muhlenberg College and founding director of the award-winning program, The Theory and Art of Magic.

 

James Peck is Associate Professor of Theatre and Chair of the Department of Theatre and Dance at Muhlenberg College.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan (December 9, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0230607888
• ISBN-13: 978-0230607880
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,988,708 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #89 in Books > Arts & Photography > Performing Arts > Magic & Illusion

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Customer Reviews

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The apologetics of Magic, June 14, 2010

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This review is from: Performing Magic on the Western Stage: From the Eighteenth Century to the Present (Palgrave Studies in Theatre and Performance History) (Hardcover)

Performing Magic on the Western Stage presents a scholarly defense of Magic as high art. All-too- often relegated to the level of a diversion for children, Magic, as examined from many vantage points i this fine collection of essays, is the superlative transcendal art.