Magician to attempt escape stunt

Most people would just put up some posters as a promotional tool.

Not Paul Szauter. He has a different approach – defying death.

In his magician persona of Dr. Wilson, the Bar Harbor man has planned an “Against the Tide” feat. At 3 p.m. Saturday, he will attempt an escape, in the style of Houdini, on the sandbar in Frenchman Bay. He will be chained to a concrete mooring using borrowed padlocks as the tide is coming in.

Among the obstacles that Dr. Wilson will face are a 9-foot-high tide, chains rated at 850 pounds and ocean temperatures that can cause unconsciousness in 30 minutes. Also he will be working with pad

locks and keys provided by audience members. Once the padlocks are accepted, his assistant will nail the keys to a board. After he has been chained in place by volunteers, the keys and board will be carried to shore.

Those donating the padlocks and keys will receive a pass for admission to the Fiddle and Chains show, set for 7:30 p.m. June 25 at College of the Atlantic, part of Bar Harbor’s Legacy of the Arts Festival. (He has his own padlocks ready, just in case.)

This stunt is not just to promote that show, but also to plug bill mate Kate Wegner’s new album “After Sunset,” a collection of Celtic and old-time fiddle music.

There are two kinds of men when it comes to magic: those who try it as a boy, then set it aside, or those who try it while young, and later come back to it. Put Szauter in that latter camp.

He returned to magic seriously about 15 years ago. After moving to Maine in 2000 to work at Jackson Lab, he has created Dr. Wilson’s Memory Elixir, an old-fashioned medicine show that features memory demonstrations, sideshow tricks and conjuring feats.

Szauter has performed escapes in public before, but nothing of this magnitude. He’s been practicing it for the past two years.

“Whenever you do anything complicated, it’s too big to imagine doing it all at once,” he said. “I’ve been working on the individual pieces for a long time, learning skills and figuring things out.”

Szauter has attempted this escape numerous times in private (“It would be suicidal to come in cold,” he said), with a best time of seven minutes. But the kind of padlocks used and the way the chains are wrapped around him will affect Saturday’s results.

The thing Szauter wants most on Saturday is good weather: “Pouring rain would not be good,” he said.

Szauter also has a signal planned for when his assistants should come in and rescue him: “When my wife faints and hits the sand,” he said jokingly.

His show June 25 will feature three of his magic sets sandwiched around two half-hour sets by Wegner, her band partner Chuck Donnelly and other musicians. Szauter will open with a street performance such as those done in the 17th and 18th century, then he will do his 19th-century medicine show, and finally he will undertake a 20th-century, Houdini-style attempt.

The “Golden Age of Magic” took place in conjunction with vaudeville, but died out around the 1930s with the advent of first movies, then television. Yet Szauter feels that magic has not only survived, but has thrived.

“The quality of material is better now than it has ever been,” he said. “More people know how to do it now, and the guys at the top of the game are doing amazing things. As long as people are entertained by imaginative things, there’s a place for magic.”

Dale McGarrigle can be reached at 990-8028 and dmcgarrigle@bangordailynews.net.