Reviews 2015
Reviews 2015
✭✭✭✭✩
by Lucas Wilson & Kelly Defilla
The Illusionist: Lucas Wilson, Toronto Fringe Festival, George Ignatieff Theatre
July 1-11, 2015
“A Magic Show for Kids of All Ages”
Soaring Above Reality by Wilson and Kelly Defilla may be listed as part of the FringeKids programme at the Toronto Fringe Festival, but it is definitely not what you might think of as a “kiddie magic show”. It consists of full-out stage illusions and really is a magic show for kids of all ages. Adults may even enjoy the show more than children because they will be able to compare Lucas Wilson with other magicians they may have seen only to discover how amazingly talented this 25-year-old performer is.
Wilson has been performing magic since the age of four and is already Canada’s only three-time Guinness World Record-holding illusionist – all for fastest escape from a straightjacket under various conditions. He also performs up to 200 shows a year, so the chance to see him and his accomplished assistant at Fringe Festival prices in a venue as small as the George Ignatieff Theatre with only 180 seats is a chance no lover of magic, young or old, should miss.
What makes Wilson and Defilla so winning is that they do nothing to suggest that they are any different from ordinary people. There are no capes, no top hats, no spangled gowns, not even a magic wand. Wilson and Defilla look any two twentysomethings you might meet on the street. They also do not use grandiose language or incantation, but present their illusions in a very low-key fashion. The point of their look and presentation style is to break down the barrier between the stage and audience and to suggest that magic is a vocation anyone can take up.
Wilson’s first illusion is so understated some may not even note how mind-boggling it is. Wilson’s enters with a large cardboard carton to unpack his magic supplies and wonders when his assistant will show up. As he takes items out the the box it starts to rise off its stand on its own with Defilla trapped inside.
In other astonishing stunts, Wilson causes Defilla to escape from being encircled from head to toe in steel rings and even places her in a packing machine where she is compressed so much her feet protrude directly from her neck.
The duo do two variations on familiar tricks. In one Wilson makes a table levitate with the use of a magic powder, but, unlike most magicians, he allows a child volunteer from the audience to help him and look closely at the floating table from every angle. At one point she found herself levitating the table on her own.
Defilla, luckily, is not confined to the role of being merely the “lovely female assistant” but gets a chance to perform a trick on her own. This is a very clever version of the Chinese linking rings, only this time done with heavy metal clothes hangers. Defilla performs the trick with lots of humour, starting with the simple situation everybody knows of clothes hangers getting entwined with each other. These clothes hangers, however, are not just caught on each other but become linked in numerous ways causing Defilla even more comic frustration.
Only one of his illusion does not really work, and that is what he calls Human Tetris, his version of the familiar sword box trick. Defilla is placed in a box and Wilson inserts two narrow hollow boxes into the main box along with an selection of steel rods. Wilson is trying to suggest a video game by performing the stunt in the dark with the object painted in fluorescent colours. The problem is that the darkness makes it hard to see Defilla and easy to imagine how she escapes. The illusion would be much more effective done in bright light like Wilson’s other tricks.
For the show’s climax, Wilson performs one of his famous straightjacket escapes, and the speed of his escape is truly breathtaking.
As often happens as children’s shows the adults posed more difficulties than the children. Though told while in line to seat themselves so that the children could see, I saw adults fill up the front row, not give children the aisle seats in the side sections and even sit directly in front of children. Come on, grown-ups, show your kids you can follow instructions! Make sure not only that your own children can see but that other children around you can see. Let children learn consideration for others from your example.
Meanwhile, all magic-lovers should place Soaring Above Reality at the head of their must-see list.
Tickets: Children under 12 are only $5. General admission is $10. Purchase online: http://fringetoronto.com. By Phone: 416-966-1062. Or at the door.
©Christopher Hoile
Note: This review is a Stage Door exclusive.
Photo: Lucas Wilson and Kelly Defilla. ©2015 Rosele Studio.
For tickets, visit http://fringetoronto.com.
2015-07-01
Soaring Above Reality