A century after his death, Budapest circus revives Houdini’s daring escapes

Bound in chains, plunged upside down into a water-filled tank and flirting with death, Harry Houdini returned to the stage in Budapest on Friday as a new circus production celebrated the legendary escape artist a century after his death.

The Circus of Budapest premiered a performance inspired by Houdini’s most famous feats, recreating some of the daring escapes that left audiences astonished and helped turn him into one of the world’s first entertainment superstars.

Born Erik Weisz into a Hungarian Jewish family in 1874, Houdini emigrated to the United States, where he became renowned for defying locks, chains and seemingly impossible traps.

The Budapest production is not a biographical account of his life, but rather “a journey through the borderlands between life and death, remembrance and letting go, and the very nature of time,” the Circus’ website says.

The show imagines Houdini suspended between life and death, with his wife pleading with Persephone, the queen of the underworld in Greek mythology, for his return.

“Someone who is doing escape pieces is always playing with death,” the show’s director Laszlo Magacs told Reuters. “He’s always going to the other side.”

The show blends theatre, dance and acrobatics, including a recreation of Houdini’s famous 1912 water escape, in which he was lowered upside down into a tank with his feet locked in stocks.

“I think Houdini was the first influencer in the world,” Magacs said. “He was just a genius at how he sold his pieces, how he advertised himself.”