Scottish storytelling illusionist bringing new show to Tucson

“I think when we think of magic and illusion, the shorthand we have for that is rabbits and hats, people going in shiny boxes, Vegas production values,” he explained over coffee in Tucson in late July. “And for me, as enjoyable as that sort of stuff is … it’s always felt a little empty.”

Silven would rather use his magic talents to tell a story, like the one about his 12-year-old self running through the woods in his native Scotland in search of the birthday gift his father had just given him.

That memory that Silven carried with him for 20 years is the basis of his new show “The Lost Things,” which Arizona Arts Live is bringing to the University of Arizona’s Marroney Theatre Nov. 17-21.

“The audience gets to go on that journey with me to relive the memory,” Silven said. ”The great power of the illusion is it becomes fully immersive and interactive for the audience that they are guiding the journey, they are guiding the experience.”

Storytelling comes first for Silven, who studied psychology and contemporary performance at Edinburgh University in Scotland. That background helped him land a spot as the first magician to perform for the prestigious Edinburgh Fringe Festival and, years later, the Edinburgh International Festival.

Silven’s shows start “with an idea of something I want to say, the sort of journey I want to take the audience on,” he explained. The stories are personal, narrative-based “moments that transform or change my life.”

Like losing his father’s gift in those woods back home.

“That was a real turning point in my life where I lost something really important to me,” he said.

Magic becomes the metaphor for telling the story, and Silven’s illusions invite the audience to look deeper into their own stories.

The deeper he delved into his story, it became clear to him that the whole experience of losing the gift might have been fabricated.

“The version of events I constructed for myself was a total lie, and that's how the show begins,” he said.

The audience is introduced to the 12-year-old version of Silven, played by a young actor, and gets to relive that memory with him.

He introduces illusions much like a playwright adds plot twists and turns as a way to “elevate the experience and bring the audience into it a little bit more.” Awe-inspiring illusions woven into the deeply personal narrative take the audience from magic show to theatrical experience.

“It's a little more elevated than what we would think of as a traditional magic performance. It should really feel like a piece of theater,” said the 37-year-old Silven. “With psychological illusion, you really don't know how it's going to play or how it's going to work until you get it in front of an audience.”

In addition to “The Lost Things,” Arizona Arts Live co-commissioned Silven’s 2020 piece “The Journey,” which Arizona Arts Live premiered digitally in December 2020 and in person in spring 2021.

In all, the U of A arts presenter has commissioned at least 20 works since Chad Herzog became executive director in 2019.