Tuesday, October 20, 1992 MILWAUKEE SENTINEL 9A
Reviews
Audience has an easy job enjoying Seebach’s show
By JAY JOSLYN
Sentinel critic
The easiest job in the theater is a magician’s assistant. All you have to do is to buy a ticket.
At the Modjeska Theater, audiences for David Seebach’s “Illusions in the Night” have an especially easy job. Try as you might to employ rational explanations, the illusions get you every time.
Seebach said magic meant having a good time. But when his hypnotized helper was impaled on a sword, or when she disappeared into thin air after being levitated about 25 feet above the stage, or when he robbed his wife of her torso, it was difficult not to take things seriously.
Seebach, a Milwaukeean who has taken his entertaining skill far afield, employs a fine sense of dramatic logic to his act, which is accompanied by more evocative music than patter.
The show’s Halloween finale is the best example of effortless suspension of disbelief. After he incinerates one of his lovely aides, the theater is invaded by a scary tribe of soaring and diving ghosts and skeletons. Seebach’s charm adds luster to even familiar gags of which the show has a considerable number.
“Illusions in the Night” will play the haunted Modjeska weekends through Oct. 31., During the day Saturday and Sunday, Seebach and company will be entertaining at the State Fair Park craft show.