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Magic, deception and the Chinese conjuror
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
THEATER REVIEW. “The Mystery of Chung Ling Soo.” At 7 Stages though July 29.
In the early 1900s, Chung Ling Soo, the “Marvelous Chinese Conjuror,” was as popular a vaudevillian as his friend Harry Houdini. He swallowed fire, created optical magic —- and rarely uttered a word.
But on an infamous London night in 1918, he was shot to death while trying to execute one of his signature feats, “Defying the Bullets.” As blood splattered the stage, the exotic-looking Asian said: “My God, bring down the curtain. Something has happened.”
Strangely enough, his English was perfect.
As it turned out, Chung Ling Soo wasn’t from China. He was a New Yorker named William Ellsworth Robinson, who’d led a secret double life for years. His dazzling deception, and the mysterious circumstances of his death, sparked a scandal and a mystique that endures to this day.
Witness Jim Steinmeyer’s new biography, “The Glorious Deception,” and the visually evocative play “The Mystery of Chung Ling Soo,” by New York’s Flying Carpet Theatre, which has touched down at 7 Stages before departing for Scotland’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe in August.
Created by Amy Boyce and former Atlantan Adam Koplan, the chamber-size whodunit is a theatrical bonbon that pays loving homage to the art of magic, the murder-mystery genre and the backstage tradition of back-stabbing and fanny-grabbing. Was Chung Ling Soo’s death an accident, a crime of passion or the result of some undetected motive?
From the get-go, Robinson (Matthew Seidman) uses his deadpan demeanor and faintly quivering brow to signal that there’s a little “Twilight Zone” action going on here. Like his famous historical counterpart Chung Ling Soo, James Chen barely murmurs a syllable, but his fluid movement and inscrutable gaze make him the mesmerizing focal point of the show-within-a-show. Why, Chung Ling Soo, you’re as delicate and pretty as a China teacup.
But not all is perfect in this tingly tale, which is virtually humorless and turgid at times. The piece —- which unspools as a true-crime flashback replete with reporters, screaming headlines and voice-overs —- has the trajectory of a bullet speeding backward. (Or maybe it’s a ricocheting rickshaw.)
Still, there’s nothing scattershot about its ethereal choreography and elegant, low-tech aesthetic. (Sets and lighting are by James H. Aitken; costumes by Kim Gill.)
Spinning parasols become the wheels of a carriage drawn by a human-horse. Fabric drops to the floor with the frisson of a burlesque number. And thanks to composer Michael McQuilken, who manipulates recorded samples and live keyboards into a continuous sound loop, the players dance through time and space like actors in a silent film.
Deploying sleight of hand and conjuring tricks such as the master himself might’ve used, Flying Carpet reconstructs the dual life and disturbing disappearance of Chung Ling Soo. But the strange story of William Ellsworth Robinson doesn’t stop when the bullet strikes.
In fact, that’s when the fun begins.
THE VERDICT: A pretty puzzlement.
THE 411: 8 p.m. Wednesdays-Saturdays. 2 p.m. Sunday. Through July 29. $15-$20. Flying Carpet Theatre, 7 Stages, Back Stage, 1105 Euclid Ave. N.E., Atlanta. 404-523-7647, www.7stages.org.
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