Houdini exhibit lifts cover on a life of artistry and renown

IF YOU GO

Houdini: Art and Magic and Masters of Illusion: Jewish Magicians of the Golden Age

What: The Skirball Cultural Center welcomes the first major museum exhibition to explore the life, career and lasting influence of legendary escape artist and magician Harry Houdini. As a companion exhibit, the Skirball has created another first that focuses on the contributions of other famous Jewish magicians.

When: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, noon to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Friday; on view through Sept. 4.

Where: Skirball Cultural Center, 2701 N. Sepulveda Blvd., Los Angeles.

Admission: $5 to $10; free to members and children younger than 2.

Information: www.skirball.org or 310-440-4500.

"If you were to ask somebody on the street, `Who is Sigmund Neuberger?' no one would know," says Erin Clancey, managing curator of the exhibitions "Houdini: Art and Magic" and its companion, "Masters of Illusion: Jewish Magicians of the Golden Age," now on view at the Skirball Cultural Center, referring to the famous illusionist known as The Great Lafayette.

"In his day, he was the highest paid, most celebrated magician," Clancey notes. "Why would someone who is so famous completely fade from our memories, and why would Houdini overshadow him?"

Chalk it up to self-promotion and marketing.

Organized by The Jewish Museum in New York, the traveling Houdini exhibition is the first to explore the life and legacy of the celebrated showman through more than 150 pictures, artifacts, playbills and dramatic Art Nouveau-era posters that show some of the early ways in which Houdini marketed himself, such as "King of Cards." However, it does not reveal any performance secrets.

Houdini was born Ehrich Weiss in 1874 Hungary and raised in the United States. The son of a rabbi, he decided to become a magician after reading about the French magician Jean Eugene Robert-Houdin, who established the modern style of conjuring.

To honor his hero, Weiss took the name of the celebrated magician and added an "i" at the end.

Granted, "Masters of Illusion" was developed by and for the Skirball only to pay homage to Robert-Houdin and other famous Jewish magicians of the Golden Age - a time when magic, vaudeville and other variety acts were a popular form of entertainment in America and Europe.

Street performers doing table magic gave rise to the creation of automatons, sleight of hand and grotesque illusions such as sawing a woman in half, decapitation and cremation.

The era from 1875 to 1948 was also a time of social innovation as transportation developed beyond primitive roads and horse-drawn vehicles, and magicians could mount increasingly complex and far-reaching acts. Railways and steamships, and eventually cars and trucks, took these intrepid travelers to the far reaches of the globe.

While his contemporaries entertained large crowds in theaters, Houdini knew the power of the press. He took his magic feats to the street, attracting throngs of spectators with free impromptu performances, frequently outside newspaper office buildings.

Other artifacts used by Houdini include a trunk used in his trick Metamorphosis Trunk - a quick-change act in which the escape artist was shackled in a mail sack and then locked in the trunk by his assistant, wife Bess Houdini. A curtain would go up in front of the trunk and three seconds later Houdini and Bess would reappear having exchanged places.

Also featured in the exhibition is a large steel milk can, different handcuffs and a replica of the original tank used to perform his most grueling stage escape, the Water Torture Cell (aka Chinese Water Torture Cell or Upside Down), which will only be on view at the Skirball.

The original was destroyed by fire in 1995.

Theatergoers could watch as a shackled Houdini was lowered headfirst into a locked water-filled tank, with its front wall made of glass. A curtain was dropped as the orchestra played "Asleep in the Deep."

Two or three minutes later the curtain was raised to reveal Houdini, wet, smiling and unshackled.

Brittany Lee Rosario Dawson Pink Natalie Zea Leelee Sobieski