Review – Stuperstition

What most impresses me about Stuart Lightbody’s stagecraft is not just that it is both astounding and perplexing, but how savvy he is to skepticism. Early in the show, he sits an audience member in the middle of the stage and makes tissues disappear for them one at a time, two at a time, three at a time, etc. But what that person can’t see, and what everyone else can, is that Stuart is just tossing the tissues to the back of the stage with the aid of a little misdirection. Stuart wants us to know how easily we can be fooled, that there is a trick to be found if we can just look for it, but at the same time he performs utterly confounding sleight of hand that I still can’t even guess at. This is probably the greatest trick Stuperstition pulls off, in that it indulges your doubts as a rational person with jokes about homeopathy and references to the scientific method, and then whacks you on the side of the head with proof of our latent psychic powers or the legitimacy of astrology.

This isn’t just another magic show, but rather a carefully constructed rouse that will have you laughing in disbelief and leave you puzzled for days afterwards. Stuart Lightbody is a disarming, confident magician with a singular and convincing act, and his run at this year’s Fringe is disappointingly short. Make sure to catch him if he makes a return.