Sue's News

Manifesting Magic

December 29th, 2007

Disillusioned
Act II, Scene 3

(slowly)

Start from nothing, then make it — (suddenly pulls out a rainbow scarf from his right sleeve) Magic!

Bernie, the magician in my play Disillusioned, says this to Jane, his apprentice and adopted daughter. These are some of the last words he leaves her with before his final stroke… And I believe they’re words to live by.

When Bernie shares these words, he’s already lost most of his ability to speak and move, but he somehow finds the will and strength to communicate the essence of why we’re here in the first place — to create magic in our lives, to make something where there was once nothing.

A lot of people will tell you magic is merely slight of hand or stage trickery… but it’s more than that… It’s a way for us to get in touch with that part of ourselves that believes there’s something bigger out there than we are, or that we could ever fully understand.

I listened to James Ray on The Masters of the Secret this evening, and he mentioned what he thought the definition of magic is:

“The ability to create willful change in the fabric of your universe, both spiritually and materially.”

I wrote those lines for Bernie about two years ago, to hear them manifest themselves now makes me smile, makes my heart smile…because it lets me know I’m on the right track. What I heard from a character’s mouth, what I heard from some part of me, I’m now hearing out in the world, and it’s an amazing experience.

From all my plays, this one scared me the most, and honestly, it’s the one I’ve probably sent out the least.

In addition to Bernie’s multiple strokes, Jane, the apprentice and protagonist, fakes blindness, and then actually turns blind.

It’s not that I’m giving her “her just desserts” or “payback” or any of that nonsense. She used blindness as a way to navigate in the world. Like tinted windows, she could see out, but no one else could see in.

It’s when she really loses her vision, and is forced to rely on the kindness of a stranger, that she sees there is kindness in the world, something she was sure there was none of. (Hence the name, Disillusioned… that and the nice tie in with the art of illusion!)

I’ve already experienced some negative responses… some feel like I exploit the blind or blindness, but I treat Jane (and any blind person I meet) with kindness and respect.

Like a mother with her babies, I sometimes want to protect my characters. I tried to take to pity on her, to protect her from going over that edge. But the best thing I did for Jane was that I let her go all the way, and I left her out at sea… I left her to find her own way home… and magically, she did.

Whenever I write, I feel that I’m making magic, making something out of nothing and creating change in the world.

Though there’s a part of me that still worries about the reception this might get when it’s produced one day soon, I know it will open a lot of people’s eyes to the world and people around them.

–Sue

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