Issue date: 10/8/07 Section: Features

Media Credit: Jim Moldenhauer Garry Carson holds up a sack containing the $100 bill of an audience member he seemingly just burned.

Media Credit: Jim Moldenhauer Garry Carson brought his magic to the Community Players this Saturday.

On Saturday evening, at the Community Players, a sold out audience held its breath as stage lights dimmed. Then the curtain rolled up and a near-empty stage was revealed. All that sits on stage are several boxes, and so the magic begins to make the audience curious. From the corner, a man in blue appeared and approached the box. With a flourish he throws a cloth on the cage, and pulling it back, presto - his wife.

This is Garry and Kelsey Carson, a match made in match. The husband and wife duo have been performing magic for audiences for years now and for one night only they brought their magic performance, called "The Art of Illusion," to the Bloomington-Normal area.

Their next trick was to spurt a panther from a cage. The cat was docile and kind, and dragged laughs from audience, although Carson added, hopefully jokingly, "right now you're like a buffet to her."

The panther, named Shaya, is two years old and from a rescue agency in Kansas. Carson rescued the cat when she was only one week old.

"[Tonight there will be] magic, illusions and comedy. Feel free to laugh if the magic doesn't work, that's the comedy," Garry Carson said.

But he did throw out a couple of clever little quips.

"Most accidents happen within five miles of your house, so why not move 10 miles away?" Garry Carson joked.

After putting the panther in a cage, and drowning it in treats, he went on to one of his finest tricks of the night. Getting out a sketch pad he first drew a circle, then in that circle drew three circles and wrote around the drawing "bowling ball." Then he took the pad, closed it, gave it a punch and a real bowling ball dropped out from it. He had audience members feel it to see if it was real, and boy, was it ever.

For his next move he put his wife in a box, a common theme of the night, and locked it up tight. All that protruded of her from this box was her head, some fingers and some toes.

Then, with a nice flourish, he shifted the top part of the box, knocking it in half so that she was side by side, her top half and her bottom half separated. The toes wiggled on.

One of the most impressive illusions involved a grandma selected from the audience. She came on stage and Garry presented her with a paintball gun. Across the stage was a sketch pad with an outline of a man. He had the grandma, named Jane, fire at the man, hitting him in the left of the head, the heart area and the side torso. Then he dragged over a box that had been on the stage since the start of the performance and had her unlock it. Inside the box, which had gone untouched the entire performance, was the image of the man, and he was shot in the exact same places, with the exact same color paintballs, as the one on stage.

Garry, aside from having the help of his wife Kelsey, had some pretty hilarious audience participation. For instance, one young, local boy named Ian, came up on stage, and when on the stage had an exchange with Garry.

"How old are you Ian," Garry asked.

"…Six," he said.

"Oh…well, Garry says that you can't be on stage unless you're at least seven years old… how old are you Ian?"

"Six."

"…well Garry says that you can't be on stage unless you're at least seven years old…how old are you Ian?"

"Six."

"…well Garry says that you can't be on stage unless you're at least seven years old…how old are you Ian?"

"Six."

"Okay, well, that's okay..." Carson said.

For their next trick they did a transformation.

"This is one of Harry Houdini's favorite tricks, it goes fast so don't miss it. It's called the metamorphosis," Garry Carson said.

This trick involved his wife getting into a box, Garry standing on the box and then lifting a curtain. As the curtain drops the husband and wife somehow switch. Then Kelsey, now on top of the box gets down and opens the box where she pulls out her husband. He gets off, takes off his handcuffs and is free.

The performance drew audience members of all ages, plenty of kids, adults and the elderly. Including Mike Manahan, retired Olympia High School wrestling head coach.

"How they did that [paintball trick], that's amazing. It'd be interesting to see how it's done," Manahan said. "And my grandson, the older one seems to like [the show], I imagine just getting different [audience members] and seeing how they react would be interesting."

The night closed with a sentiment magic trick about what snow was like in Colorado, where Carson was raised. He took a napkin, tore it, then made a flurry of flakes explode from his hand. The night was a success and after, the crowd was all a hubbub about "how he did it," and positing their own theories for the secret of the magic.

But all this thinking just shows their wonder at questions they do not have answers to. This is the magician's goal, and he succeeded another night.

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