It starts with a carefree round of cards and has some crowd-pleasing illusions but Eduardo De Filippo’s Grand Magic (1948) is as much about the ways we deceive ourselves as we do others. Staging his third of De Filippo’s plays for Ontario’s Stratford festival, artistic director Antoni Cimolino has conjured up a sophisticated and intellectually stimulating production that balances daft comedy with poignancy. Like the best of tricks, it catches you off guard.
We are in a seaside hotel whose guests include the mean-spirited Calogero, his neglected wife Marta and her paramour Mariano. Calogero’s own faithfulness is questioned when the magician Otto puts on an entertainment in which he makes Marta disappear. With a playful awareness of theatre’s own artifice, we see her secretly depart in a speedboat with her lover – their feet sticking below the hull as they scamper away.
