ABRACADABRA!

　 Hey presto! It"s China"s first magic musical. Photo: CFP

If goldfish "magically" doing synchronized swimming as seen on this year"s Spring Festival Gala doesn"t quite do it for you, then perhaps you"ll need a double take at Dutch master illusionist Ger Copper"s belief in what the word "magic" really means.

Entering the stage dressed from top to toe in white, as the stage lights dim against the dark backdrop you see only the magician as he commands candles, cages and boxes to appear, float and then disappear. In one of the most famous tricks a conjurer can do, Copper and his assistant go even further by sawing a woman in half, as she stands in front of us. Each half then moves about the stage seemingly independently. Eventually the magician rejoins the halves back together.

It is just one of 35 illusions that Copper will bring to the "Broadway-style Chinese musical" The Joker"s Game. "It is an old form of magic that is rarely used today in its original form, called black art. The various effects black art produces are fantastic," Copper, the musical"s magic effects director said. "It is secret because few books are written about it. The first five minutes" performance took me three years of effort."

The two-time Dutch champion of magic has worked on black art magic for decades. He even won the world championship of magic in 1979 in Brussels by manipulating giant candelabras out of nowhere.

Copper became involved in the musical because of his Chinese apprentice Deng Nanzi, who plays a magician and the hero in The Joker"s Game. According to director Tony Stimac, the story unfolds with a young magician falling in love with a princess in the Tang Dynasty (618-907). But Emperor Wu didn"t agree with their marriage and sentenced the magician to death by beheading. Just as the blade is swishing through the air, we time travel to the modern age…

Deng explained the hero has romances with four ladies, based on the four suites in a deck of cards, each of them a metaphor for their personality. "Magic skills serve for storytelling and boost the development of the hero"s romances with four kinds of girls. Four queens in real life, with the heart for love, the diamond for money, the spades for power and the club for fame," said Deng, who needs to stage magic tricks, dance, and even sing in the musical.

Three years ago, the scriptwriter Zhang Kemin met Deng and shared his story idea with him. Deng suggested adding magical effects to the musical, which can be called the world"s first magic musical.

"There is absolutely no end to what the performer can do on the stage. This form of magic really allows the imagination to go wild. Besides that, a good story and beautiful melodies will never let the audience down," said Zhang.

The producer Li Dun is well known for staging musicals of Chinese classic tales like The Tale of the White Serpent and Butterfly in the past decade. He said he invited a Broadway song composer to help with the score. "We will have two versions ready, Chinese and English. In the future, we will tour to Broadway anyway," he said, not short on aspirations for his ambitious magical musical.

The play is still in rehearsals and is set to be on stage from September.