
Turning the Table: How to make a flipping table
- Jay Duckworth
Drumsticks of shamans were the first representations of magic wands. Then later, in ancient Egypt, the royal cubit was a standardized stick that was distributed to workers, those too were seen as magic wands because those who carried and worked with these sticks were able to build the structures of the Gods. The first documented magic trick is from ancient Egypt, where Dedi, a fictional ancient Egyptian magician, decapitated a bird and then reattached the bird’s head and brought it back to life. There is also a depiction of the cup and balls trick where a ball was put under one of three cups. The trick was to follow where the ball was supposed to be, an ancient version of Follow the Lady aka Three-card Monte. As technicians in theater, there are often times where we have to create an illusion. In William Shakespeare’s The Tempest there is a banquet table in Act 3, Scene III where food appears out of nowhere. There is a neat trick for this, and I’d love to share it with you.
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