Magic News

Joe M. Turner Helps to Bring Chung Ling Soo from Dead

Joe M. Turner

One of the maxims of business: If you need something done, give it to a busy
person.

We have no idea where he finds the time, but Joe M. Turner should always be
our first source on virtually all magic information. He is the proverbial busy
person performing shows, giving lectures, making public appearances, teaching
magic, writing articles of interest to both magicians and the rest of the
population.

Frankly, just listing the activities have made us tired — but a
good kind of tired.

When we wrote about the upcoming production on the life, mystery, and death
of Chung Ling Soo, we knew there was more to the story.

The show will make begin
its run at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in August and has already received the
kind of good press you rarely receive in advance of an opening.

So what was the secret behind the mystery of Chung Ling Soo? How could a
theater group of non-magicians put on a show about one of our more enigmatic
legends that included the performance of magic effects? There had to be a
magician involved somewhere, we just knew it.

It turns out; Mr. Turner worked as a magic advisor to the show during its
formation in the Atlanta area.

Sure, that makes sense. Mr. Turner has plenty of spare time on his hands.

Why
there must be six or seven wasted hours in his itinerary each fiscal quarter he
could dedicate towards teaching and advising a theater group.

Emory professor, magic performer and lover of all things magic, Dr. Stuart
Zola, recommended Mr. Turner to the play’s director Adam Koplan.

Mr. Turner was
able to arrange his schedule to attend rehearsals, provide instruction, and
coach the performers in the proper presentation of magic tricks.

Let’s go off on a tangent/rant: We’ve loved the notion of television, motion
pictures, and even the legitimate theater. We think it is the kind of
entertainment that will inevitably replace radio and GAF View-Masters.

But when
a magician performed his act on the radio, we were entranced. Even though we
could not see Mandrake or Dunninger, we watched with our mind’s eye.

Magic came
to the more visual media and outside of magic shows presented by real magicians,
it became an embarrassment.

Is there anything worse than an actor performing as a magician? We realize
the obvious conflict with Robert-Houdin’s famous axiom but we think he really
meant, “a magician is a magician who is an actor playing the role of a
magician.”

If Mr. Robert-Houdin lived to see Greg Brady perform the Crystal Silk
Cylinder on the seventh season of the Brady Bunch, or David Cassidy levitating
the already gossamer-light Susan Dey on the Partridge Family, he would likely
have placed his head beneath his Light/Heavy Box and asked for full-power.

Where actors and directors take the time to learn how to perform magic as
magicians rather than as actors performing magic like they think a…

Joe M. Turner

One of the maxims of business: If you need something done, give it to a busy
person.

We have no idea where he finds the time, but Joe M. Turner should always be
our first source on virtually all magic information. He is the proverbial busy
person performing shows, giving lectures, making public appearances, teaching
magic, writing articles of interest to both magicians and the rest of the
population.

Frankly, just listing the activities have made us tired — but a
good kind of tired.

When we wrote about the upcoming production on the life, mystery, and death
of Chung Ling Soo, we knew there was more to the story.

The show will make begin
its run at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in August and has already received the
kind of good press you rarely receive in advance of an opening.

So what was the secret behind the mystery of Chung Ling Soo? How could a
theater group of non-magicians put on a show about one of our more enigmatic
legends that included the performance of magic effects? There had to be a
magician involved somewhere, we just knew it.

It turns out; Mr. Turner worked as a magic advisor to the show during its
formation in the Atlanta area.

Sure, that makes sense. Mr. Turner has plenty of spare time on his hands.

Why
there must be six or seven wasted hours in his itinerary each fiscal quarter he
could dedicate towards teaching and advising a theater group.

Emory professor, magic performer and lover of all things magic, Dr. Stuart
Zola, recommended Mr. Turner to the play’s director Adam Koplan.

Mr. Turner was
able to arrange his schedule to attend rehearsals, provide instruction, and
coach the performers in the proper presentation of magic tricks.

Let’s go off on a tangent/rant: We’ve loved the notion of television, motion
pictures, and even the legitimate theater. We think it is the kind of
entertainment that will inevitably replace radio and GAF View-Masters.

But when
a magician performed his act on the radio, we were entranced. Even though we
could not see Mandrake or Dunninger, we watched with our mind’s eye.

Magic came
to the more visual media and outside of magic shows presented by real magicians,
it became an embarrassment.

Is there anything worse than an actor performing as a magician? We realize
the obvious conflict with Robert-Houdin’s famous axiom but we think he really
meant, “a magician is a magician who is an actor playing the role of a
magician.”

If Mr. Robert-Houdin lived to see Greg Brady perform the Crystal Silk
Cylinder on the seventh season of the Brady Bunch, or David Cassidy levitating
the already gossamer-light Susan Dey on the Partridge Family, he would likely
have placed his head beneath his Light/Heavy Box and asked for full-power.

Where actors and directors take the time to learn how to perform magic as
magicians rather than as actors performing magic like they think a magician
performs magic, they do well.

Consequently Mark Wilson’s conscientious
instruction to Bill Bixby for The Magician series paid off. Mr. Bixby looked
like a magician to both magicians and lay television audiences.

It is high-praise to Mr. Turner, therefore, that the performance of magic
tricks seamlessly melds with rest of this new play.

Okay, tangent/rant complete.

Mr. Turner pointed out that we had the entire story backward. At first, we
thought he meant this literally.

We were puzzled because we couldn’t imagine why we were not aware it was
actually Chung Ling Soo who killed one of his assistants by spitting a marked
bullet from his teeth.

Then we read on. Mr. Turner meant our chronology was
flawed: the show is actually premiering in Atlanta and heading to the Fringe
Festival after its run domestically.

(We offer the following note in the hope some producer will read this and believe we have the
ability and knowledge to be a magic consultant.

Unlike the infamous Bullet Catch
trick, there are no recorded incidents of a magician’s assistant being injured
in any manner due to a malfunction in a Bullet Spit trick.

See,
“Unsanitary and Unimpressive: A Public Health Examination of Quinlan’s Bullet
Spit Magic Trick,” Centers for Disease Control Journal of Public Health and
Investigation, May 1999, pp 23-28. (Medline Reprint: 05-7119098)

“The danger
comes from the great likelihood that Mr. Quinlan’s saliva contains enough
bacteria and viruses to infect anyone on whom his wicked expectoration should
land. We would particularly caution the first three rows of the audience but
note so few attended the exhibition and so the public health risks are likely
contained. Mr. Quinlan’s show works to effect a de facto
quarantine.”)

The show will run from July
15th through the 29th in Atlanta before they pack the trunks and cross over
to the excitement of Edinburgh’s Fringe Festival.

Mr. Turner was asked to recommend effects or methods to “make magic happen”
as part of the play. The play was never destined to be a “magic show” but
clearly magic and magic events had to be a part of the story. He was shown
scenes where something “magical needed to happen.”

Talk about pressure. That’s on par with someone asking you to “say something
funny!” or “chew with your mouth closed!”

Sure, Mr. Turner probably would have rather been involved earlier in the
creative process or at least have time to research the effects seen by audiences
of Chung Ling Soo’s era. But he had to work quickly and within the time-limits
set by the production schedule. The effects and tricks he did suggest were all
in use during the time.

After working with Mr. Turner during several coaching sessions and
rehearsals, the director asked the peripatetic Mr. Turner to present a 20-minute
set on a few nights. Mr. Turner agreed and will perform on two nights during the
show’s run.

We asked Mr. Turner what it was like to work with a theater group preparing
for an international debut.

Well, the company is experienced, creative, and was very receptive
to having me as a magician come in and contribute some ideas and tips. They were
also very pleased to discover that I have experience as a stage actor and that
definitely helped our relationships to gel faster. I really enjoyed the approach
that the playwright and director have taken with regard to telling this story
and only gradually revealing the Robinson/Soo dual identity.

Mr. Turner has a well-deserved reputation as a tough, accurate, and fair
critic. When he says the DVD is great, we think about buying it. When he says it
is not worthy of our money, we encourage members of our magic club to buy it for
the library.

As one reporter asked President Lincoln’s wife, ‘other than that, what did you think of the play?’

At the last rehearsal I attended, I saw a run-through of the first
25 minutes of the show and it really does grab you from the very beginning. It
is exciting to have been even a very minor player in bringing the show to the
stage.

We hope to have a chance to see the show in Atlanta during its run and we’ll
give you our impressions. The story of Chung Ling Soo has been one of our
obsessions since we first read of his tragic death in the pages of Walter
Gibson’s The Master Magicians.

This play and Jim Steinmeyer’s new book provide
the kind of fuel our psychotic, obsessed brain feeds on. To learn Mr. Turner
contributed to the production provides additional legitimacy to our craving.

Thanks to Mr. Turner for his input.

By the way, if you are not already
signed up for Mr. Turner’s email newsletter, you should be. Follow this link
to Mr. Turner’s web page and get hooked-up.

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