In these miserable days of post-colonial cringe when spoilt well-off self-hating middle class white elites scream "racism" at the slightest provocation, it would be impossible to enjoy a great culture-bending talent like the stage magician Chung Ling Soo. An American Scott, his real name was William Ellsworth Robinson and he performed under that name for many years, as well as "James Campbell" and "Professor Campbell". After a professional feud with his rival the Asian conjurer Ching Ling Foo, however, he adopted a Chinese persona and the name Chung Ling Soo and became famous in that identity. The public became engrossed in his rivalry with Ching Ling Foo, which was on-going and bitter, and the two men - one Chinese and one imitating a Chinaman - sparred in magic tricks, each denouncing the other as a fraud and an impostor. Each man studied the performances of the other and tried to duplicate each other's illusions much to the delight of theatre-goers everywhere.
Robinson did not take to his Chinese persona by halves; he adopted the identity in every aspect. He was scrupulous in his adoption of Chinese manners. He shaved his head, grew a pony-tail or "Manchu queue", wore silk attire and coloured his skin. He never spoke English - other than a few broken phrases - on stage or in public and he adopted a raft of Chinese habits. His new persona came with an elaborate back story. He claimed to be the child of a Scottish father and a Cantonese woman and to have been orphaned at the age of eleven. He learnt magic, he said, in South America under the tutelage of an Asian mystic named Arr Hee. When Arr Hee died the young apprentice took to the road, touring the world with the secret and ancient arts of Chinese supernaturalism. (Like much else about Robinson the story of being taught by Arr Hee is spurious. In fact, Arr Hee had made a career as a stage magician and Robinson effectively pilfered his authority for his own purposes.)
Here below is a picture of the said magus:
And here is a theatre poster promoting him as "The Marvellous Chinese Conjurer". He was born in 1861 and died - in a famous incident on stage - in 1918. At the height of his career he was world famous and the highest paid act on the vaudeville circuit.
And here is another poster from 1906:
During his stage act he was accompanied by his wife Olive Path who appeared, less convincingly, as the Chinese woman Suee Seen. She was the willing victim in his illusions: the lady in the glass case, sawing a woman in half, the woman in the boiling couldron etc. She features - as if the main attraction - in this theatre poster from the same era:
And here they are, along with a further stage assistant known as 'Bamboo Flower'.
This picture is found in the State Library of Victoria (Australia). Chung Ling Soo and his act, along with some seventy-five tons of luggage, came to Australia in 1909, performing to sell-out crowds. It is related that he made over 400 pounds salary a week, a better wage than the Governor-General and Prime Minister combined. Not only did he perform on stage, he also walked the streets of the major cities performing illusions and tricks on the spot to delighted and astounded onlookers. He embodied the character of the "mystic East". Far from being just a "racist caricature" he softened and deepened the Australian reception of "orientals". He frequented Chinatown in Sydney and was beloved by the Chinese and Euro-Chinese communities.
An innovative showman, he spent much of his time in Australia developing new illusions. When he arrived his show consisted of thirteen feats; by the time he left he had extended his show to two hours and over thirty feats. Some of his tricks were old standards, but his craft was superb and he presented them with new flare. Other tricks were ambitious and spectacular including amazing feats of fire-eating. One of his most famous tricks involved throwing animal skins into a cauldron of boiling water from which he would then pluck live animals, as if magically reborn. In another he would fire an arrow on a string through at his assistant. It would appear to go right through her body and strike a target behind her.
In 1918, in London, one of his most famous stunts - the dreaded 'bullet catch' - went wrong. He had performed the trick many times without incident. An audience member would load a marked bullet in a pistol. It would then be fired directly at the magician who would catch the bullet in his teeth. On this occasion, the illusion (done with a trick gun and a blank) failed and the performer was struck in the chest by a live bullet. He fell to the ground and uttered his only English words on stage, "Oh my God! Close the curtains!" He died in hospital the following day. A police inquiry into the incident eventually made a ruling of 'Death by Misadventure'.
Today's politically-correct sensitivities squirm at the very thought of an Anglosaxon making use of a Chinese persona as a stage act. If you search for accounts of the life and death of Chung Ling Soo online they are invariably prefaced with post-colonial twaddle as if we now need to make excuses for him. See here for instance where it is claimed that "his humility ensured that xenophobic Australian audiences did not see him as a threat..." We stereotype the 'racism' of past generations and dress it up with our own moral vanity. The author claims that "Orientalism was used to enhance the myth of white supremacy..." It was rather more complicated than that. Cases like Chung Ling Soo - cheered and revered by audiences who earnestly believed him to be Chinese - are not so easily explained.
Harper McAlpine Black
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