Reception and Adaptation: Magic Tricks, Mysteries, Con Games
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Reception and Adaptation: Magic Tricks, Mysteries, Con Games by Joseph Daniel Culpepper A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Centre for Comparative Literature University of Toronto © Copyright by Joseph Daniel Culpepper 2014 Reception and Adaptation: Magic Tricks, Mysteries, Con Games Joseph Daniel Culpepper Doctor of Philosophy Centre for Comparative Literature University of Toronto 2014 Abstract This study of the reception and adaptation of magic tricks, murder mysteries, and con games calls for magic adaptations that create critical imaginative geographies (Said) and writerly (Barthes) spectators. Its argument begins in the cave of the magician, Alicandre, where a mystical incantation is heard: "Not in this life, but in the next." These words, and the scene from which they come in Tony Kushner's The Illusion, provide the guiding metaphor for the conceptual journey of this dissertation: the process of reincarnation. The first chapter investigates the deaths of powerful concepts in reader-response theory, rediscovers their existence in other fields such as speech-act theory, and then applies them in modified forms to the emergent field of performance studies. Chapter two analyzes the author as a magician who employs principles of deception by reading vertiginous short stories written by Jorge Luis Borges. I argue that his techniques for manipulating the willing suspension of disbelief (Coleridge) and for creating ineffable oggetti mediatori (impossible objects of proof) suggest that fantastic literature (not magical realism) is the nearest literary equivalent to experiencing magic performed live. With this Borgesian quality of magic's reality-slippage in mind, cross-cultural and cross-media comparisons of murder mysteries and con games are made in chapter three. Crime adaptations by Roald Dahl, Alfred Hitchcock, Pedro Almodóvar, David Mamet and Ricky Jay are analyzed as different incarnations of specific source texts to compare techniques of deception across multiple ii media and to gauge whether these stories produce critical readers/spectators or naive ones. Chapter four accepts the challenge of performing magic that produces writerly spectators by physically reconstructing, narratively adapting and socio-historically questioning a nineteenth- century stage illusion through practice-based research. The scholarly praxis of magic as a performing art is further articulated in the experimental manifesto with which this dissertation concludes. iii Acknowledgments This dissertation is the result of an intense period of growth and change in my life that occurred thanks to the love, support, and inspiration channeled into its pages by various communities. All of them have contributed in their own ways to who I am and what you are about to read. The seeds of this work were sown in my hometown of Sacramento, California. I thank my mother, my father, my sister, and my grandmother for teaching me perseverance, discipline, and the ability to overcome seemingly impossible obstacles. I thank Nathan Livni who showed me my first real card trick, became my first performance partner, and has been my best friend ever since. I am grateful to Steve, Don, and Leora Johnson who generously gave me my first job at their wonder-filled magic shop — Grand Illusions. It was there where I began to see the world through the eyes of a magician. These shimmering roots spread to the coastal redwoods of UC Santa Cruz, where Kasey Mohammed, Peter Gizi and Gildas Hamel helped me realize that some poems are magic spells. Hervé le Mansec first taught me to truly speak and think in another language. This allowed me to escape the straightjacket of my native English and fundamentally changed my understanding of how language shapes our subjective realities. I was also lucky, as an undergraduate student in a graduate seminar, to have Harry Berger Jr. teach me how to apply philosophical concepts to the study of literature. It was his suggestion to apply to the Centre for Comparative Literature at the University of Toronto for my MA and PhD. The Centre is where writing a dissertation on magic and storytelling suddenly became a viable, living project. This would have been impossible without the patient guidance and wisdom of my PhD committee. Eva-Lynn Jagoe, with whom I first savored the mystifying stories written by Jorge Luis Borges, supervised the dissertation with grace, steel and affection. She has consistently taught me how to be an honest critic of my work. Linda Hutcheon, through her iv insightful, thorough and challenging feedback, strengthened nearly every aspect of this manuscript from start to finish. She has also modeled for me, and many others, how to be a consummate professional. Stephen Johnson saved me and this project in a number of ways. Without his expertise as a performance studies scholar and his enthusiastic support of my practice-based magic research, my study of “The Sphinx” and other illusions would have remained purely theoretical. Many thoughtful mentors and colleagues helped me to read and edit partial or complete chapters as they were produced: Neil ten Kortenaar, Charlie Keil, James Cahill, Martin Zeilinger, Keavy Martin, Baryon Posadas, Joshua Nichols, Ronald Ng, Sarah O’Brien, Rachel Stapleton, Daniel Brielmaier, Adleen Crappo, Kate Sedon, Lauren Beard, Matteo Scardellato, Dylan Gordon, Catherine Schwartz, John Mayberry, Jane Freeman, Sasha Kovacs, Natalie Mathieson, and others all contributed. Will Straw’s external report and lively comments during my defense gave the dissertation the final intellectual push it needed for me to consider it done. John Fraser, master of Massey College, and David Ben, artistic director of Magicana, each provided me with places to live and libraries to study in over the years. These gentlemen also invited me and my work into their respective communities. John introduced me to many brilliant Junior and Senior Fellows at Massey who improved my understanding of this project by listening to it and comparing it to similarities in their work. A few who come to mind now are Marcin Kedzior, Dylan Cantwell-Smith, Cara Mckibbin, Anna Shamaeva, Donna Vakalis, Patrick Boyle, Paul Furgale, Claire Battershill, Cillian O’Hogan, Jordan Guthrie, Olivier Sorin, Davin Lengyel, Katie Mullins, Hanah Chapman, Tim Barrett, Josh Elcombe, Brys Stafford, Heather Jessup, Geoffrey Little, Jessica Duffin Wolfe, Heather Sheridan, Michael Valpy, and Val Ross. I am proud to call all of these talented individuals, and many others, friends. v Many magicians have contributed knowledge and feedback that helped to shape the contents of this dissertation. I sincerely thank Jim Steinmeyer, Edwin Dawes, Peter Lane, Bill Goodwin, Gabe Fajuri, Julie Eng, Bill Kalush, Ricky Smith, Noah Levine, Nathan Kranzo, Christian Cagigal, Will Houstoun, Lee Asher, Aaron Fisher, and Alex Slemmer from the North American and English magic communities. Travel grants from Massey College and U of T’s School of Graduate Studies funded my research in Buenos Aires where the second chapter was written. Roberto Mansilla and Pablo Zanatta introduced me to the vibrant history of Argentina’s magic during that visit. In Barcelona, Gabi Pareras and Joaquin Matas welcomed me into their local scene like a long lost brother. Gabi’s approach to combining critical theory, literature and the performance of magic gave me a strong sense of solidarity at a time when I felt very alone. I wish to thank the performance studies scholars, arts organizations and variety performers whose support made the final transformation of this dissertation (and my career) possible. I have become a praxis-based scholar thanks to Antje Budde, Nik Cesare, my dear Ars Mechanica co-founders (Vojin, Natalie, Sasha, and Myrto), Bruce Barton, Moynan King, Shelley Liebembuk, Paul Babiak, Paul Stoesser, Sarah Kriger, members of the Accademia dell’Arte (in Arezzo, Italy), The Toronto Arts Council, the Ontario Arts Council, Performance Studies International, the Digital Dramaturgy Lab, New Gendai Workstation, the Circus Academy, and the Toronto Juggling club. Finally, I thank Jessamine Trueman — the circus artist whose love made the final pages of this particular chapter in my life fly by. vi Table of Contents Acknowledgments .......................................................................................................................... iv Table of Contents .......................................................................................................................... vii List of Figures ................................................................................................................................ ix Prologue Reincarnated Texts and Concepts: Towards Faithful and Free Adaptations ........ x Chapter 1 Deaths and Reincarnations of Reception Theory .................................................... 1 1 A Genealogy of Rebirths: From Theories of Reception to Theories of Adaptation ................. 7 1.1 Rezeptionsästhetik: Origins, Critiques and International Travels ................................................... 8 1.2 Deaths — Post-Structuralism, Polemics and Passing Away ......................................................... 12 2 Reincarnations — Intertextuality, Semiotics and Performance Studies ................................. 15 2.1 Barthes, Inter-texte-ualité, and the Scriptible/Lisible in S/Z ......................................................... 20 2.2 Eco’s Open Text, the Model Reader, and the Double-Model