Having read Moliere's comedy L'Avare (The Miser) what are some themes or plot devices that a magician could incorporate into his/her performance material?

Please discuss...

Having read the Financial Times: A banker printing his own money might be topical.

Read it in English here:

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/6923/6923-8.txt

Ther are some fine lines in there for coin tricks like (in a supicious tone as if the specator has stolen something) "show me your hands -Here they are - the other ones..."

Lawrence, thank you for getting the spirit of this excersize! I loved the way Moliere broke the fourth wall with the character asides, yet not all the characters could do this. Not sure there is anything to base a routine on, but as a comedic device it is worth study...

I think that the point you touch is that humour is not central in a magic trick (except for some specific very talented magicians): it releases tension, but when it gets central it takes audiences out of focus.

Moliere seems to me to be a good pick for his theme is to ridicule people who are overly and obsessionally materialistic but humour never takes us off track in his play. It simply places us emotionally on the side of the people smiling about our own materialistic pulsions.

Similarly magic doesn't make reality ridicule, it makes us share with an audience our smile at our overwhelming tendency to accept lavishly the constraints of reality. Imagination is more powerful than materiality or brutal force and shows it more than through any other art through magic.