SHUFFLE ALONG
Is stuff magical only because it can’t be explained? Perhaps it’s more than just the absence of logic, probability, or reason. There’s a presence too: Magic evokes a child-like sense of wonder in the oldest adults, rewarding their imagination more than their ignorance. But in a world where Vegas-styled, hi-tech acts abound, nothing is more appealing than a magician in a tiny, speak easy-type of room in DTLA, entertaining about two dozen guests up close and personal with nothing more than a deck of cards.
Fortunately, Siegfried Tieber prefers to be Penn and Teller rather than David Copperfield, producing elaborate and escalatingly exciting variations using just 52 cards—moving them from one place to another without being detected. Whether in a magic envelope or the pocket of his suit, Tieber can transport cards signed by audience members into his own mystic ozone, making them later reappear in places they should never have visited (maybe that’s why they’re call “Magic Markers”). His show, See/Saw, which opened on September 14, just keeps getting extended, even with six shows a week.
Tieber—who is happy to personally show you around his displayed artifacts—has a delightfully quirky, child-like, comical personality, and an accent that’s so charming, one would think it a fake (he hails from Ecuador). I could neither begin to explain the slightest of his sleight of hand, let alone the secrets of his teleportation, legerdemain, and omniscience. Nor would I want to: Ignorance is bliss when magic is literally at hand. And Mr. Tieber had me in the palm of his hands.
photos by Aaron Champion and Lisa Whiteman
See/Saw
presented by Atlas Obscura
Civic Center Studios, 207 South Broadway
(enter from a corner of the Broadway parking lot near the Birds & Bees Speakeasy)
Thurs-Sun at various times
ends on October 29, 2017
for ticket, visit See/Saw
