WTC daredevil Philippe Petit’s one-man show is all talk — and no walk

In August 1974, Philippe Petit committed what some call “the artistic crime of the 20th century.”

The lithe, ginger-haired Frenchman and a ragtag gang of accomplices snuck into the then-new World Trade Center and, under cover of night, set up a steel cable between the top floors of the towers. At dawn, Petit walked over the void, with nothing to catch him if he slipped.

Petit’s exploit was illegal, but instead of going to jail he was adopted by New Yorkers as a cultural icon. In the early ’80s, he became artist in residence at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. In 2008, the WTC feat was immortalized in James Marsh’s Oscar-winning documentary “Man on Wire” and the following year it became the linchpin of Colum McCann’s hit novel “Let the Great World Spin,” which won the National Book Award.
In “Wireless!,” Petit says “primitive magic” drew him to master acrobatics and clowning.
Tamara Beckwith
In “Wireless!,” Petit says “primitive magic” drew him to master acrobatics and clowning.

Now Petit, 61, is about to step down to earth — a k a the Lower East Side’s Abrons Arts Center — where he’s performing the one-man show “Wireless!” from Thursday through Saturday.

“It’s autobiographical in the sense that I’m sharing who I am and what I do with the audience,” Petit says, before warning that there won’t be any actual wire-walking. “I wouldn’t want to have a little demonstration of the high wire in a show like this, which is the kind of thing that people love here: ‘Can you show me? Can you teach me?’ Well, do you have two years? In five minutes, you want me to hold your hand so you can make a fool of yourself and of my art? Also, putting a wire in a theater is a total nightmare. You need tons of equipment, you have to drill holes, weld things.”

Rest assured that Petit won’t skip out on his claim to fame, though: “I’m constantly on a metaphorical wire,” Petit says, “miming what happens on the actual one.”

Besides, he has enough tricks up his sleeve to fill 90 minutes, as was obvious to those who saw him make a coin appear and disappear during his Oscar acceptance speech.

“I learned magic around 6 years old, which led to juggling when I was a young teenager,” he recalls. “Magic requires a certain amount of dexterity and involves the art of misdirection, and all that I see on the wire. There is a certain amount of primitive magic in the presentation of someone walking on a wire.”

Jay Wegman, the director of Abrons, compares Petit to a Rubik’s Cube: “He has all these sides to him, and it’ll be interesting to see how he twists and turns them around. He’s a clown and acrobat and magician, and that French accent of his helps a lot — it just adds to the sense of playfulness.”

Indeed, the ebullient, mischievous Petit seems to be a bottomless font of enthusiasm.

“He’s the most extraordinary storyteller you’ll ever meet,” says J. Ralph, the musician who wrote the theme for “Man on Wire” and is contributing an original score and sound design for the new show. “He’ll make any jaded person feel excited.”

After all this time, Petit knows people still expect to hear about his trademark coup, even if for him it’s just one of many.

“I keep a box of index cards, and for each walk I write down the length, the height, how much I was paid, the music I used, the costume I wore,” Petit says. “I’m now at 80 walks in 45 years.”

What was No. 1 like?

“It was a Bastille Day lake-

crossing in France. Nobody noticed because there was a fishing contest going on underneath the wire.” He laughs. “It was a fiasco.”