An escapologist is a performer whose show is getting out of things that should hold a person: ropes, handcuffs, a locked box, a cage, sometimes underwater or hanging in the air. The audience watches because it looks impossible, and then it is not. Harry Houdini is still the name people reach for. It is stage work, not crime — though actually the skill sits close to picking locks and bending the body, so the same hands could do either, and that is part of the thrill. You will meet the word in writing about circus, magic, and old variety theatre. People almost never use it for someone who simply ran away from trouble.

逃脫術表演者