Magic on the Early English Stage

An original investigation into conjuring tricks and stage magic on the medieval stage.

Philip Butterworth (Author)

9780521825139, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 6 October 2005

318 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.2 cm, 0.64 kg

Review of the paperback: 'Philip Butterworth's style is excellently suited towards theater studies, and will teach students the material clearly without overcomplicating the subject … [The] paperback format … raises the bar for Magic on the Early English Stage's high standard of excellence, making sure that it stays one of the foremost theater studies textbooks.' Bookrenter.com

Magic on the Early English Stage investigates the performance of magical tricks, illusions, effects and their staged appearance in the medieval and early English theatre. Performers who created such magic were not known as conjurors, as we might refer to them today, but as jugglers. Records concerning jugglers on the medieval stage have been hitherto misunderstood or misapplied. These references to jugglers are re-examined in the light of discussions of 'feats of activity' that also include tumbling, vaulting and 'dancing on the rope'; appearances and disappearances of the 'Now you see it, now you don't' variety; and stage versions of these concepts; magic through sound in terms of ventriloquy and sound through pipes; mechanical images and puppets; and stage tricks. Information that has remained dormant since original publication is discussed in relation to jugglers such as Thomas Brandon, the King's Juggler, and William Vincent, alias 'Hocus Pocus'.

Introduction
1. Jugglers: the creators of magic
2. Feats of activity: juggling, tumbling and dancing on the rope
3. Conveyance and confederacy
4. Appearances and disappearances
5. Magic through sound
6. Mechanical images, automata, puppets and motions
7. Substitution
8. Stage tricks
9. Terminology
Appendix 1. Edward Melton's Text
Appendix 2. Wily Beguiled (1606)
Appendix 3. Beggars' Bush (1622)
Appendix 4. The Knave in Graine (1640).

Subject Areas: Theatre studies [AN]