Saturday 23 August, h.20:30, Theater MYSTERO
TALES OF A CRAFTSMAN OF ILLUSIONS
This show allows spectators to rediscover the centuries-old figure of the magician in a modern and perhaps culturally unexpected key, as heir of an ancient and well-documented tradition that goes from Pacioli to Cardano, from Garzoni to Aretino and even many centuries further back.
The tricks are performed in a modern and updated style, and will take the audience on a journey through time to meet characters such as Reginald Scot (1538-1599), Giuseppe Pinetti da Orbetello (1750-1800), Max Malini (1873-1942) and others, discovering how magic tricks that are hundreds as well as thousands of years old (recounted by Alcifrone in the third century BC and, later, also by Seneca) still remain alive and current.
In 1200 a man named Al-Jawbarī, a Syrian Arab from Damascus, wrote a book describing a game that would appear in European literature only 300 years later with the title of "The Egg Bag".
This trick will be recreated in this show, along with the classic effect of the "Chinese Linking Rings", described by Gerolamo Cardano in his “De Subtilitate” and also the "Card Stab" that Giuseppe Pinetti from Orbetello performed in Paris in the 18th century.
Today "mentalism" appears in vogue. In reality it never really went out of fashion, but over the centuries, it has merely changed name: in the 80s of the last century paranormal phenomena were popular, while at the beginning of the 1900s spiritualism shows became fashionable; from those years we modern magicians have inherited the effect of the "Spirit Boards".
Magicians are also very curious people and have always been interested in gambling, or rather, in methods of cheating. Not for illicit reasons, but because this field has often provided ideas for new illusions. All this will come to life in a part of the show dedicated to gambling that will allow us to discover a curious device that Pietro Aretino talks about in 1543 in "The Talking Cards".
Last but not least, this show also features a trick described for the first time in print in 1584 in the famous "Discovery of Witchcraft" by Reginald Scot.
Why do these ancient games not lose their charm? Why do they not become obsolete or forgotten? Above all, what is truly real? We could ask ourselves in an abstract way, like philosophers, or...
...or we could learn to enjoy wonder again by watching, listening to and living a little of these stories that all of us craftsmen of illusions tell.
Produced for the European Magic History Conference 2025
Limited number of seats!
(Seats are not numbered)
More info: +371 29470394 [email protected]
Mystero • Vienības gatve 30, 1004 Rīga, Latvia
