A play about Houdini that premiered in Round Rock has made it across the Atlantic and back, just in time for Halloween, the 100th anniversary of the famous magician's death. Audiences in the Austin area can see Houdini Speaks To The Living from October 28-31 at the Hidden Room Theatre, the venue where it was originally staged.
Houdini Speaks To The Living is set in 1924, a time a press release calls "the height of the world’s obsession with Spiritualism," a belief system that separates spirits from the physical world.
The plot pits the Great Houdini (played by co-writer Patrick Terry) and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (co-writer Robert Matney) against each other. Doyle believed in Spiritualism, but Houdini called it a fraud. As an illusionist, Houdini was disgusted at people who presented themselves as mediums and played tricks in the dark.
According to the Smithsonian Magazine, Houdini told his wife, Bess, that he would try to send her a message from beyond. However, after years of holding her own seances, Bess gave up. There's no time like the 100th anniversary of the magician's death, though, to make it through the veil.
Audiences will be able to some of these illusions in the play, which combines such stagecraft with more typical live theater, reflecting the character of Houdini while raising debates about science, illusion, grief, and the afterlife, the release says. It also broadly ties the themes back to current events, alluding to "misinformation and competing versions of truth."
After setting off from Austin, Houdini Speaks To The Living was shown in New York, Philadelphia, and at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, a world-renowned performing arts festival that ran from August 7-31.
The play's return to Austin will be special because of its origin here and the noteworthy dates, but another addition makes opening night a good time to see the show.
Eric Colleary, author of Houdini’s Library: Inside the Spellbinding Collections of the Great Illusionist, will appear after the show on October 28 for a conversation about how it came to be. Colleary works at Austin's Harry Ransom Center as its Cline Curator of Theatre and Performing Arts; the production team used the center's Houdini collection to help research the show.
Tickets ($35 general admission, VIP upgrades and discounts available) are on sale at zeffy.com. The runtime is 60 minutes. The Hidden Room Theatre is located at 2120 N. Mays St., #290, in Round Rock.
