This easy to change seasonally themed
production box uses principles established by Harold Westgate, Al
Aldini, and Louis Histed, combined together by Jim Gerrish. A
do-it-yourself woodshop project! Wah! If you like the Square
Circle, multiply it by Three and you'll love WAH!
The audience first sees a four-legged
table, draped with a large tablecloth. In his hands, the magician
holds two large tubes. One is rectangular shaped, with cutouts on
the face so that you can see through it to the black interior.
For our example, we have added Jack-O-Lantern decorations for
Halloween, but removable faceplates can be made to give the box a
different appearance for a variety of different occasions.The
other tube is usually a cylinder, but not necessarily so. It
could be another rectangular tube decorated like a haunted house,
or a castle tower, etc.
Both tubes are shown to the audience from
both ends, so they can clearly see that the tubes conceal
nothing. Magicians in the audience, who were expecting to see
evidence of Louis Histed’s Square Circle principle, instead
see nothing at all.
Both tubes are nested on top of the table
and the tablecloth is removed. When the magician is ready to make
something appear within the inner cylinder, he rotates the tube
so the cutout is towards the back. Then a huge production can be
made from the tube. Between productions, the inner tube can be
lifted out to show it completely empty from both ends, or simply
rotated to allow the audience to see inside it through the
rectangular cutout.
The final production is made of a stack of
water filled fishbowls, or something equally impressive. In our
version, the bowls can be seen appearing inside the cylinder
through the cutouts in both tubes. Then when both tubes are
removed, the stack of fishbowls stands alone on the tabletop and
it is taller than either of the tubes from which it came.
