Being Danté and Being Rejected

I often think about the hard life touring magicians had at the turn of the century, with tons of material packed in heavy crates, to be loaded on trucks or ships, driven to the back of a theatre, carried in the wings to be unpacked and prepared for the evening show, and all this repeated week in and week out, with the constant fear that the audience would not accept the illusionist, that the publicity was not enough, that inclement weather would keep patrons away.

I have already talked about the weight of magical apparatus, something that had to be considered not only when the illusionist was travelling, but also when he was stopped in a city, waiting for the next engagement. Sometimes, the engagement would not arrive: the illusionist would be rejected by a theatre. We rarely have a view of any missed engagement, but in this article, for once, we will be able to add a small bit of information – inconsequential as it may be – to the life of one of the great magicians of the 20^th century.