“A TRIP TO HADES.”

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIX, Issue 146, 23 May 1939, Page 3

“A TRIP TO HADES.”

CHANG’S UNUSUAL SHOW. Producing a guinea pig seemingly out of thin air, Cliang, tlio master magician, who commenced a season of two nights at the Opera House last night, performed the initial feat of a long series of illusions, which in the end, the audience ceased to try to fathom, and took as a matter of course. From then onwards until the grand finale when lie himself appeared out of an apparently impregnable metal box, Chang kept his audience in a constant state | of mystification. The next trick was to produce an egg from a small ball i of fluff, which gradually grew bigger and bigger until lie plucked it- off a I fan. and, lo and behold, it was an ege —there was no doubt about it, and just to prove be was right lie cracked it on a saucer. Nonchalantly waving a net in the air, lie snared some unwary pigeons—no one saw them until they, were in the net—put them on a box, and they disappeared. .He turned beer into water and water into wine, and wine to water. He broke some eggs in a frying pan, lit a fire in the pan, put a lid over it, and a. duck arose from within. A box —it looked just an ordinary one—produced rabbits, a dog and two girls, while the audience wondered. They were to wonder further for many baffling tricks were played. Plunged momentarily into pitch darkness, ghosts and skeletons walked, on the stage, along tlio aisles and over tbe beads of those in the front rows. Tt was Chan’s “Trip to Hades.” Shooting ,n. bullet attached to a red ribbon through a woman oil the platform was a painless operation. and to illustrate the saving “Time Flies” he beguiled the audience into believing that five clocks would fly across tbe room, from one table to another. Chang’s wrists were tied together with string, and wooden hoops were thrown on to his arms, one on each arm. How be did it will remain a mystery. A pound note was initialled by a stranger to the company, and given to another person on the stage, and from an orange which was cut open was taken an egg. and from the egg n walnut, and inside the walnut was the note which had been initialled. He threw flowers out of a magic carpet, and with these arranged on the stage above the footlights the power was switched off. producing a brilliant effect wliicli bad for its liacknround a. group of dancing nymphs. Then a skull in the centre of the floor answered questions put to it l>v patrons. Even then Cliang lias onlv shown half bis band and bis tricks came tumbling out one after the other. One highlight was when he handcuffed a girl, tied her in two canvas bags, put her in two boxes, one inside the other, tied some more bags round the outside box, twisted some rope securely round it, and then placed the box in a tent. A few seconds afterwards Cliang disappeared and was found in a box suspended from the roof. The old Chinese legend of the prince and the princess, in which the high priest punished them for making love to each other, hv nv>.king the princess vanish into thin air, was the climax. Chang is undoubtedly in the first rank of magicians. Supporting Cliang was a very fine ballet, led l>y Joanna Claire, the Cuban Marimba Orchestra, and Walton and Murray, tlio sensational acrobatic balancers from the London Palladium. The orchestra provided one nf tbe brightest turns of the evening with tlio Cuban Marimba played by three of them on the xylophone.