Eisenheim addresses the audience. I will now peform the famous 'Zig-Zag" illusion. Usually magicians perform this illusion with box closed, but I think you should see it with the box open."
Lisa goes to the back of the stage, where there is a tall three-part box, just big enough that she could fit inside. The box is sitting on a handtruck, which she uses to bring the box to the front of the stage, next to Eisenheim. She takes the hand truck back, then she returns and stands on the opposite side of the box from Eisenheim.
Eisenheim pulls out the two large, sharp blades that separate the three sections of the box, and shows them to the audience. He opens the three doors, looks at Lisa, and says, "If you would, please," gesturing toward the box. Lisa steps into the box, and turns around to face the audience. "This may hurt a bit." he says. "Quite a lot, in fact. Are you ready?"
Lisa says, "Yes, I am ready." Eisenheim takes one of the blades, and starts to slide it into placee, between the lower and middle parts of the box, which join at her waist level. At first the blade slides easily, but then it hits some resistance, and Lisa says, "Oooh!" Eisenheim pushes the blade harder, and Lisa winces. As he continues to push, suddenly he overcomes the resistance, and the blade slides fully into place. Lisa cries in pain. A little blood is visible. The audience gasps.
"Are you ready to continue?"
Lisa's face shows pain and fear, but she says, somewhat meekly, "Ready." Eisenheim starts to slide the second blade in, between the middle and top parts of the box, lining up with her neck. As before, there is some resistance, and Lisa struggles not to say anything. Eisenheim continues pushing, and the blade slides into place. Lisa screams. A little more blood is visible. After a moment, she calms down.
Eisenheim asks, "Are you ready?"
"Yes," Lisa says, not terribly convincingly, though she smiles a bit.
Eisenheim starts pushing the middle box toward Lisa's left. The box slides. When he has pushed it about two thirds of its width, he stops. Lisa's midsection is now very clearly not lined up with her head or her lower body.
"Are you OK?" Eisenheim asks.
"Yes," Lisa says, more confidently. She is smiling, and doesn't appear to be in pain.
Eisenheim pulls a handkerchief from a pocket, and wipes up the blood that is visible. He says "When you cut a woman in half, or in thirds, there is inevitably a little blood."
The man in the front row says, "It's ketchup. She's a contortionist. There are mirrors."
Eisenheim looks to him, and again congratulates him for his perceptiveness. Then Eisenheim puts his arms around the middle part of the box, and pull it entirely out, separating it from the top and bottom parts. The top part, containing Lisa's head, somehow remains in place in midair. The audience gasps. Eisenheim carries the middle part a few feet to the side, and removes his hands from it. The middle box, too, is fixed in place in midair. As he steps aside, Lisa's midsection and arms still visiable. "Could you wave to the audience, please?" Lisa raises one arm and waves. In the top box, several feet away, she is now smiling broadly. That top box is still suspended in midair above the bottom box, containing her legs.
Eisenheim picks up the box containing her legs. He carries it, and sets it down, in midair, two feet to the side of the middle box. He stands between them. "Can you wiggle your toes?"
Lisa lifts her left leg a bit, for the audience to see. From the upper box, a few feet away, her head says, "The audience can't see my toes. You'll have to remove my shoes." Eisenheim waves his wand, and both of her shoes disappear. Now the audience can see that she is, in fact wiggling her toes.
"Other foot," requests Eisenheim. She lowers he left leg, and raises her right leg, and wiggles its toes. She lowers the leg.
Eisenheim addresses the audience, "Let's have a round of applause for Lisa, for being such a good sport and letting me cut her into thirds." The audience applauds very heartily.
As the applause dies down, Eisenheim remains standing between Lisa's midsection and legs. He starts to explain how he learned this illusion. "I was tramping about in Lithuania, staying in youth hostels, when I met an old magician..." as he tells the story, one hand idly caresses one of Lisa's legs, moving over her with unseemly familiarity.
"Hey1" Lisa's head interupts, from the top box, a few feet away. One of her arms, in the middle box next to Eisenheim, raises and slaps him. "Hands off the merchandise!" she yells.
Eisenheim pulls his hand back, and tries to resume the story, but Lisa isn't having any of it. "You can't harass your assistants like this! I demand to be put back together at once!"
Eisenheim tells the audience, "Sorry about this! The story will have to wait for antoher time." He carefully takes Lisa's lower body out of the box, and sets it to the side. He picks up the roll of duct tape, which had fallen from his sleeve earlier, and unrolls a long strip, tears it off, and sticks one end of it to his arm. He then takes her midsection out of the middle box, sets it atop her lower body, and wraps the duct tape around her divided waist. He walks over to get her head, when her midsection crashes to the floor. The audience gasps.
"Ow!" exclaims Lisa's head. "I told you duct tape wouldn't hold!"
Eisenheim looks at her head, then at the other two parts of her body. He frowns in thought for a moment. Then he smiles, and a glowing lightbulb literally appears over his head. then disappears. He holds out one hand, and waves his wand with the other. A very large squeeze tube appears in his hand. The audience can read the label, whish says "SUPERGLUE". The audience laughs.
Eisenheim walks back to Lisa's lower body, and pulls off the strip of duct tape and casts it aside. He opens the cap of the superglue, and starts sqeezing it out onto the top surface of Lisa's lower body. Once he has enough, he puts the cap back on the bottle, then picks up Lisa's midsection, and carefully sets it atop her lower body. He presses it down slightly, and hold her midsection for a few seconds. Then he tentatively removes his hands. This time she remains joined. He then squeezes more superglue onto her severed neck.
He walks back to the top box, and carefully removes her head. Turning to the side, he holds her head up in one hand, and said, "Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio. A fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy." There is a smattering of laughter and applause from the audience. He carries her head back to the rest of her body, and sets it in place, holding it down for a moment. When he removes his hands, she stays together. He's about to say something to the audience, when...
Lisa says, loudly, "You fool! You put my legs backwards!" She lifts a leg, and the audience can see that the toes are pointing toward the back of the stage, opposite the direction she is facing, and that her knee is bending the wrong way. "You have to fix me!" She puts her foot down, literally and figuratively.
Eisenheim says, "Oops." He waves his wand, and suddenly her legs are the right way around.
"Thank you," she says. "And while you're at it, you ruined my beautiful costume when you cut through me. Could you please fix it?"
Eisenheim waves his wand again, and the edges where her costume has been cut knit back together, looking good as new. "Let's have another round of applause for Lisa!" he says, and the crowd goes wild. Lisa curtsies.