Review: Magic!

Theatre through the magician’s means

Lillan’s Magic is a fascinating monologue

Director Neil Hardwick and magician/actor Robert Jägerhorn collaborated in the early 2000s on Yle’s television series Troubleshooter. Jägerhorn is also known from MTV3’s The Sons of Houdini .

Now the duo Hardwick-Jägerhorn have brought an interesting monologue built on a single actor to the stage of Lilla Teatern, Magic, where magic tricks play a key role in storytelling.

The performance, which lasts just over an hour, is built from two episodes without an intermission. The plot is that viewers are shown the lost Alfred Hitchcock’s first silent film Number 8. The problem right from the start is that the film projector breaks down and the film cannot be shown. Jägerhorn has to entertain the audience until the repairman comes and fixes the projector.

In this part, he is a magician. The role suits a man who has been a professional magician since 1997 and has performed for years in both Hollywood and New York, not to mention TV appearances. Many of Jägerhorn’s magic tricks have been honed into art and are suitable for the theatre stage. Stand-up comedy comes to mind.

The second episode begins with the correction man not coming and Jägerhorn has to perform the most important scenes of the film himself. Now we get to the part where the methods of theatre play the main role and magic tricks play a supporting role, but still the keys to the whole show. In this part, Jägerhorn’s acting skills also come to the fore. After all, she graduated almost two decades ago with a master’s degree in theatre and drama.

There is no need to reveal more about the supposed lost Hitchcock film and its plot. However, it can be said that Jägerhorn is able to take the plot in an unusually expressive way as a one-man show. Thanks to this, director Hardwick also has a fair share. He directed Jägerhorn’s program for the World Championship of Magicians in The Hague, the Netherlands in 2003. It won bronze in a tight competition.