When Lyn Dillies did magic at the Harvard Senior Center earlier this week, it was up close and personal. She was just 4 or 5 feet from the front row of her audience. She often called audience members to step forward and take part in the performance. She handed silver hoops, balloons, and other items around for inspection—and then did something seemingly impossible with them.
There were no flickering lights, no heavy curtains, no clouds of smoke to divert the viewers’ gaze at a crucial moment. There was just a petite woman wearing black pants and a gold-sequined jacket, chatting easily with the audience.
As Dillies began her performance, she held a newspaper in her hands. While she talked about being shy and bullied as a child, she ripped the newspaper in half. She said she had taken out a book on magic from her local library when she was 12, and it had changed her life. As she spoke, she continued to rip the newspaper into smaller and smaller pieces, till it was nothing but some crumpled shreds she clutched in one hand. Then suddenly she spread her hands apart, and there was the newspaper—whole and undamaged! Not a single tattered bit of paper fluttered away.
And that was just for starters. Solid steel hoops were separate one moment, then linked in a long chain an instant later. A rose-pink scarf took on a mischievous personality, bowing farewell to the audience but then refusing to stay in its box after it was supposed to be offstage. At the close of her performance, Dillies asked people to think of worthy ideals, and an audience member called out “Peace.” In an instant, a white dove fluttered up, seemingly from nowhere.
Dillies said she designs her illusions to work on many scales. The senior center was a small, intimate setting; but in larger settings, her illusions are on a much bigger scale. According to her website, she was the first illusionist ever to make two live Asian elephants appear in succession. That spectacle was for the grand opening of the Buttonwood Park Zoo in New Bedford. She continued to work with the two elephants, Emily and Ruth, for many years, while they lived in the zoo between performances.
Dillies is a Massachusetts native, born in New Bedford and now living in Westport. In 2013 she was the first woman illusionist to win the Milbourne Christopher Award, putting her in the company of David Copperfield and Siegfried and Roy. She has also won awards for her philanthropic work, especially her support for a food pantry that serves the Dartmouth area.
In 2008 Dillies began a program called “Your Vote Is Magic,” which she presents to high school students, encouraging them to see voting as a powerful and important civic act. The show is nonpartisan. As she said in a brief interview after her Harvard performance, “I once made a donkey and an elephant both appear—and they got along!”
As she ended her performance Tuesday, Lillies urged audience members, “Keep the magic in your hearts.”
Phyllis Clawson reacts as master illusionist Lyn Dillies recovers her partially torn card from inside an orange. (Photo by Lisa Aciukewicz)
