Illusionists and magicians have performed variations on the sawing the woman in half, or cutting her in two, illusion for decades. In 1921, an American illusionist named Horace Goldin presented his version, which he called SAWING A Woman In Half Illusion. The first magician to appear to see a woman in half was the magician who invented the illusion, Percy Seligbit (British) (born Percy Teebbs), at Finsbury Park Empire, London, England, on 17 January 1921. PT Selbit was the first magician to present sawing a woman through an illusion during a public performance.
Percy Teebles show was, according to experts, the first time the performer had ever seen someone cut in half — a trick that has become a Magic Icon, only rivaled by pulling a rabbit out of a hat. English magician P.T. Selbit is usually credited with performing the first public display of the woman-in-half illusion, back in 1921, which is now a staple of magic acts around the world, in varying forms and variations. In the 1920s, English magician Percy T Selbit began performing versions by British magicians that made the illusion a highly popular trick. Selbit is debut with this illusion which he called the Seen Through Woman, inspired magicians around the world.
It should be remembered that the first time a magician saw through a man was when they were Seeing a Man In Half, but the trick did not really take off until the prop had a woman placed inside. The Woman Sawed In Half Illusion is an old classic, and one you can probably deduce yourself (did you not actually think that they saw her in half, did you?). It is insane how everybody seems to associate this single illusion with magicians, when really, no one has ever seen a magician see someone in half. In this trick, the magician sets up and shows off an enormous industrial-sized circular saw, showing it is real.
When the normal table is placed underneath the saw, precisely, and secured into position, the magician gets on top of it, appearing to lie on top of the table, but actually, the magician is putting the lower half of himself in a hollow support for the table. Then, producing a large, flaky, handheld saw, the magician proceeds to look through the covered, wooden box of a coffin-size body, through the middle of the female body, and through the table upon which the box is sitting. Just as the woman is placed and bound inside the box, a female magician spots her shoes and is overcome with jealousy, and we last see the magician begin a chainsaw, threatening to cut the womans legs off. The magician waves the massive industrial round see-saw around, to distract the audience, and allows the third assistant to switch back to his initial position, his back against the roof of the cage, before removing the black fabric, which shows that she is still intact.
The audience has now witnessed the magician see the cage top-down, and therefore should see the third assistant as well. The magician was able to see between the two halves of the egg-shaped cage, as far down to the bottom of the cage, missing A third assistant by approximately one centimeter. The stated purpose of Death Saw is to allow either the performer or assistant to escape before a large saw cuts the cage. The Impossible Saw is the latest iteration of the Saw illusion, taking the transparent box saw concept a step further, by eliminating the box entirely, and splitting up the assistant with no cover whatsoever.
It does away with the big, bulky boxes used in earlier versions of the sawing illusion, and uses a big, round saw to slice the assistant, who lies exposed for the whole performance. With the assistants head and feet visible to the audience during the whole performance, and a shallow box to keep them from huddled up inside a box on their side, The Slim Model Saw was the first version to effectively bisect the assistant. Percy Thomas Tibbles-inspired magicians added now-familiar elements such as keeping the assistants head and feet in sight during the entire trick, or covering up the sawn-off ends and rolling two sections on stage, complete with a charming grin on one side and flailing toes on the other. The games from Remco cast players as stage magicians, who have to perform with their lovely assistants The Sawn Woman In Half Illusion, and stage magicians The Vanishing Box and The Levitating Assistant Illusion.
They have got the gigantic circle saw, the woman tied to a table, and an absolute lack of understanding about how this stage magicians death defying trick is supposed to work. Sawing a Woman In Half is the umbrella title for a variety of different stage magic tricks where one person (traditionally, the womans assistant) is cut in two, either by a saw or by other means.
The trick, the sawing of a woman in half, has been performed in some form since 1809, when the magician named Torrini performed it first at a reception of Pope Pius VII. The question of who was the first woman sawed in half has received far less publicity than that of which magician presented the Sawing Illusion first. It was only a long time afterward that seeing someone cut in half became something with Robert Houdin writing of seeing a magician named Torrini, who was possibly the first to perform a sawing illusion. One of the illusions at Theatre of Magic was a Tiger Saw, a buzzsaw used to cut a woman and pinball in half.