The Magician is an Actor
Transcription
The Magician is an Actor
The Magician is an Actor: The Use of Physical Acting as a Tool for Magicians and Magic as a Tool for Physical Actors by Scott Christopher Walsh, A.A.; B.A.; MPA. Thesis Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the Mississippi University of Women & the Accademia dell’Arte in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Fine Arts in Physical Theater The Mississippi University for Women & Accademia dell’Arte December 2013 1 Dedicated to “The Professor” “These are only my ideas and a few opinions I have, and I don’t want any of you fellas to think that I’m conceited…”1 Dai Vernon, “The Professor” 1 Vernon, Dai. Vintage Vernon Volume 1. 2 Table of Contents Introduction……………………………………………………..…………………..……………….…..……………..………….1 Part 1: Background…………………………………………………………..…………………......………..……..………2 The Integrated Body in Magic……………………………………………………….……………………………3 A Little Background……………………………………………………..…………...…..…………………..………4 An Ongoing Debate……………………………………………………..………………….….……………..………6 A Convergence……………………………………………………..………………...………..………………………8 The Juggler vs. The Magician………………………………………………………..…………………………10 To Be Yourself or Not to Be………………………………………………………...……..……………………11 Contextualizing Physical Theater…………………………………………………...……..…………………13 Magic as Physical Theater……………………………………………..………………..………………………19 The Actor’s Body in Magic………………………………………..…………..………..………………………22 An Applied Example……………………………………………………..……………..………..…………………26 Part 2: Context……………………………………………………..……………..…………..……………..………………32 Cardini and Swan……………………………………………………..……………..………….……..……………33 Roy Benson……………………………………………………..…………….…………..…..………….……………34 Dr. Clutterhouse……………………………………………………..………..…………..…………..……………35 Tommy Cooper and Carl Ballantine……………………………………………..……………..……………36 Tom Palmer…………………………………………………..……………..…………….……………………………37 Tomsoni & Co. ……………………………………………………..……………..…………....……………………38 Kohl & Co. ……………………………………………………..……………..…………..……………………………40 Voronin and Svetlana……………………………………………………..……..…………..……………………41 Scott the Magician and Ms. Muriel…………………………………………………...……….……………43 Gardner and James……………………………………………………..……..………………..…………………44 A Pattern and an Opportunity……………………………………………………...…….……………………46 George Oscar “GOB” Bluth……………………………………………………....…………..…………………48 Beyond GOB……………………………………………………..……………..…………..…………………………50 A Second Way……………………………………………………..……………..…………..………………………52 Part 3: Application…………………………………………………..……………..…………..………..…………………55 3 The Cookie in the Hat ………………………………………..…………..……………..………..………………56 The Sorcerer’s Apprentice………………………………………………..…………..………..….……………58 The Conjurer’s Assistants……………………………………………………..…..…………..…………………60 The Omelette in the Hat……………………………………………………..…..…………..…….……………62 The Comedy Levitation……………………………………………………..……..…………..…………………64 Blackstone’s Enchanted Garden…………………………………………………..…………..…..…………66 Magical Plots……………………………………………………..…………..…………..…………………..………68 The Spirits……………………………………………………..……………..…………..…………………….………72 The Rose to Silk and the Lamp Chimney Vanish ………………………..…………..…………..……76 The Clowns……………………………………………………..……………..…………..……………………………78 Absurdity……………………………………………………..……………..…………..…………………..…….……82 The Language Question and the Magician in trouble……………………..…………..……………84 Character Development……………………………..……………..…………..…..……………………………89 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………………………………………….96 Appendix……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 98 Works Cited.……………………………………………………..……………..…………..…………..…………………………iv Vita……………………………………………………..……………..…………..…………..………….……..………………..…viii 4 Introduction “Magic is the theatrical art of creating the illusion of impossibility in an entertaining way.” Charles Reynolds, Mystery School Anthology Below is a reproduction of a short essay which appeared in the program notes of The Conjurer’s Assistants and the Waters of Shangri-La, my Graduate Thesis Performance for my MFA in Physical Theater at the Accademia dell’Arte in Tuscany, in 2013: MAGIC RE-SOULED. Today, the classical style of stage magic is virtually extinct as a form of popular Theater and entertainment. Over-edited street magic flourishes on television and over-produced illusion acts rule Las Vegas. It is time, then, for 21st century magic to be re-souled. Howard Thurston, America’s Master Magician in the early 1900s, said, “You can fool the eyes and minds of the audience, but you cannot fool their hearts.”2 With this piece, I attempt to deconstruct the fast, flashy, loud, and soulless Las Vegas style; while dodging the comic cliché of the ‘bumbling magician’ (a parody which outlives the parodied). Act One, by functioning like clockwork, provides a silent set up to an act of even greater deconstruction, as magic gives way to clown and the clockwork is torn apart gear by gear. 2 Steinmeyer, Jim. The Last Greatest Magician in the World. 5 Part 1: Background 6 The Integrated Body in Magic “Perhaps some deeper, more complex work will be written on this subject, following the same path or taking a completely different one….All of us, I think, want to have successors. I would even say we need them.” Juan Tamariz, The Five Points in Magic Despite our quirks, I believe it is fair to say that magicians are a wonderful group of people. As I have traveled and lived around the world, the brotherhood of magicians and their tolerant spouses have welcomed me warmly, politely accepting my shortcomings in foreign languages in order to embrace our shared universal language of magic. But I believe it is also fair to say that magicians are a group that, on the whole, has developed their fingers at the expense of the rest of their bodies. Creating a deceptive illusion on stage requires a mastery of the entire body – not only the fingers – as well as a deep theatrical understanding of storytelling, dramatic construction, and acting. Thousands of books exist on the use of the fingers in the theatrical medium of magic. This paper, however, explores the entire body, of which the fingers are indeed a part. Specifically, it examines how an integrated body can best be used for purposes of deception in entertainment, as well the advantages which can be gained by exploring not only the techniques, but the theatrics, of stage magic. Juan Tamariz 7 A Little Background “A prestidigitator is not a juggler; but an actor playing the role of a magician; he is an artist whose fingers have more need to move with deftness than with speed. I may even add that where sleight of hand is involved, the quieter the movement of the performer, the more readily will the spectators be deceived.” “Un prestidigitateur n'est point un jongleur; c'est un acteur jouant un role de magicien; c'est un artiste dont les doigts doivent etre plus habiles que prestes. J'ajouterai meme que, dans les exercises de prestidigitation, plus les mouvements sont calmes, plus doit etre facile l'illusion des spectateurs.” Jean Eugene Robert-Houdin, Memoirs Thus wrote the celebrated French conjurer Jean Eugene Robert-Houdin nearly 150 years ago, in an 1868 book entitled, Les Secrets de la Prestidigitation et de la Magie. With this passage, the father of modern magic argued against the well-known maxim that it is quickness of the hand which deceives the eye. Instead, Robert-Houdin advocated for calm or quiet movements. He asserted that prestidigitators (which translates quite literally as the fast-fingered) should focus less on speed and more on playing the role of the magician. Given that all magic is make-believe, it seems almost obvious in retrospect that all magicians must play or act in order to create the best magic experience for an audience. Yet, even with this early counsel, serious study of acting is often overlooked by magicians. One hundred years later, Dai Vernon, one of the most revered sleight of hand experts of the 20th century, gave advice to magicians when he urged them to “be natural!”3 At first glance, this may seem to be an admonishment against acting. But what does it mean exactly to be natural? How does one be natural as one is performing a variety of tricks and illusions that are inherently supernatural or 3 Vernon, Dai. Magic Castle Lectures. Volume One. 8 unnatural? In that light, then, Vernon’s declaration can easily be construed as another call to magicians to utilize acting techniques. I suggest the terms actor and magician are inexorably connected. Whether on stage as part of a large production, or even in the more intimate setting of table or close-up magic, the performer, by the simple virtue of effecting tricks is one who creates an atmosphere of wonder or mystery. The level of the atmosphere depends squarely on the level of the performer’s understanding and ability to act. Jean Eugene Robert-Houdin and his Orange Tree Automata 9 An Ongoing Debate “...if you try to act in the sense of the actor...you have the best chance not to be a good magician, for to act in the actor's sense, you will very likely appear contrived, unnatural, and uncommunicative because you will seem artificial.” Roberto Giobbi, Genii Magazine “Acting is the ability to live truthfully under imaginary circumstances.” Sanford Meisner In spite of my quick declaration of simple truth about the actor/magician, there has been no small debate in the magic community about the meaning of Robert-Houdin’s exortation. In fact, as recently as 2010, Roberto Giobbi, perhaps one of the most influential magical authors of the late 20 th century, stated in Genii, the leading magazine for magicians, “magicians are better off not studying acting, since it has nothing to do with magic.”4 Giobbi’s article ignited magic forums with electricity for months afterward as supporters and detractors of this statement voiced their opinions on the matter. I join the debate in this way: for this bold statement to make sense, Giobbi has to take a rather narrow definition of acting. I contend Giobbi is concerned that by studying acting, magicians will begin to act unnaturally; which is to say that they will overact. But, of course, Robert-Houdin never argued in favor of overacting. In fact, when he stated that “the more quieter the movement, the more readily will the spectators be deceived,”5 he appears to be arguing unequivocally for naturalness. In that sense, Giobbi agrees with Robert-Houdin. 4 5 Giobbi, Roberto. “The Genii Session.” Robert-Houdin, Jean Eugene. The Secrets of Prestidigitation and Magic. 10 One of the best ways to effect naturalness is to do so through acting. Robert-Houdin is well known in magic circles for being among the first magicians to do away with unnatural robes and costumes, and to perform in full evening dress (white tie and tails); the natural dress of the period. In contrast to Giobbi’s position, Robert-Houdin seems to understand more clearly that not all acting must be overacting. In fact, by studying acting and its connection with the body, a performer can make great strides in learning how to control tension – and more importantly – learn what naturalness is, and how to artificially create it. For example, magic often requires magicians to secretly conceal an object. In this case, the magician must create relaxation where tension would naturally exist, both physically and psychologically. Guilt and tension will betray a magician from a much greater distance than an accidental exposure of the object being concealed! Inversely, magic often requires that the magician create tension where no tension exists. This can occur when a hand is really empty, but ostensibly holds an object. This control of tension and relaxation is fundamental in sleight of hand, and is, in my opinion, inseparable from the craft of acting! Naturalness is critical in order to deceptively execute covert sleights and operations. Beyond that, however, acting natural is not necessarily the best theatrical choice for creating full productions of illusions. At some points, a more theatrical arc is required. Even Dai Vernon, who advocated naturalness, also called for what magicians term the moment of magic. These are the moments when magicians pretend they are causing the magic to occur by casting a shadow, snapping the fingers, or tapping a wand, to name but a few options. These are moments of unnatural acting, to be sure, and they are among the most fun moments during the performance of a magic trick. Most important, too, 11 these moments can become the theatrical linchpins of an effect, the unnatural indulgence after all the covert techniques have been naturally disguised. Roberto Giobbi A Convergence “The best actors do not let the wheels show.” Henry Fonda I maintain that the opinions of Vernon, Giobbi, and Robert-Houdin can all find common ground in the following statement of my own: A magician must act naturally when executing covert sleights or manipulations, but when supposedly causing the magic to take place, the magician must “play the magic” as an actor would. Furthermore, the most sure way to act naturally while executing a covert sleight, is to believe in the action that is supposedly occurring. Whether magicians should formally attend drama school is another question altogether. When Robert-Houdin penned his memoirs, acting schools had only just begun to exist and most actors would have learned the trade through apprenticeships with professional troupes. Today, 12 however, the point is arguable. Contemporary and award-winning magician John van der Put, better known as Piff the Magic Dragon, whose wonderfully unusual magic performance in a green dragon suit went viral on the internet in 2012, states, “it is insane for magicians to think that they can be good stage performers without studying theater.”6 In spite of this most recent development, others including Giobbi, still claim it to be an unnecessary diversion. It is not for me to make an overgeneralized proclamation here. I am sure the need to study acting and to what depth varies caseby-case depending on the strengths, weaknesses, and goals of the individual performer. My own path led me to a conservatory in Physical Theater located in the rolling hills of Tuscany. I believe that through this training I have gleaned a number of insights which may prove useful to other magicians across the world. Naturalness is not something that comes easily while executing secret sleights and lying through one’s teeth. Call it what you will, and do what you must; but this sort of thing takes technique and technique requires practice. Piff the Magic Dragon 6 van der Put, John. Penguin Live Magic Lectures. 13 The Juggler vs. The Magician "Without proper presentation, the best sleight of hand is little more than a feat of juggling.” Nate Leipzig Magicians and jugglers are often linked by their nimble and deft hands. But, unlike jugglers, magicians are not defined solely by technical ability; but more so by their imagination. Therefore, there are no limits to the power of the magician, whereas there are obvious limits to the capacity of a juggler. Jugglers can only be as good as they dexterity allows them, but magicians can be as good as they can imagine. Magic is the theater of the imagination. That said, increasingly, magicians today are practicing a relatively new branch of extreme flourish cardistry. This fast and flashy manipulation, known as eXtreme Card Manipulation (XCM), focuses more on the skill of the performer than the creation of the sense of mystery or wonder. This work is very impressive, to be sure, but it is exactly what Robert-Houdin, Leipzig, Hugard and Braue, and Vernon cautioned against as it positions the performer more as a juggler than a magician. In The Royal Road to Card Magic, Jean Hugard and Frederick Braue write, "Used in moderation [flourishes] are a decided asset to the card conjuror, but when carried to extreme lengths they defeat the very object that the magician should always have in mind, namely, that the effects he produces are done by magic and not by skill.”7 Hugard and Braue go on to write that “A series of brilliant flourishes leaves only the impression of juggling skill on the minds of the onlookers, and the performer's feats are dismissed by them with the remark, 'He's clever with his hands'."8 7 8 Braue, Frederick and Jean Hugard. The Royal Road to Card Magic. Ibid. 14 I do not mean to put down this type of work. I respect it, as I respect juggling in general. Card flourishes can co-exist and enhance magic, when done well.9 But for the purposes of this paper, it is important to distinguish the difference. When the primary objective of the performer is not to dazzle with skill, but rather to invoke a sense of mystery, wonder, or even puzzlement in the audience, then the performer must play, or act, because magic is, after all, make believe. Nate Leipzig To Be Yourself or Not to Be “I'm not an actress who can create a character. I play me.” Mary Tyler Moore In the wake of the discussion caused by Roberto Giobbi’s 2010 column, Richard Kaufman, editor of Genii magazine, wrote, “The best magicians are those who manage to fuse their personality with a style of presentation which enhances its most interesting characteristics and makes them 9 See 2011 Grand Prix Close up Act at FISM by Yann Frisch for an example. 15 interesting to the audience. Showmanship and charisma, when added to that, are what separate the men from the boys.”10 Similarly, but years earlier, Vernon would state at his lectures, axioms along the lines of, “Be natural, be yourself."11 Vernon, in turn, was heavily influenced by Nate Leipzig who also advocated for a natural and simple approach. Many stage performers, though, have played characters or enhanced versions of themselves. Cardini, for instance, played an inebriated gentleman who seemed to be seeing things. Elmer Gylleck played the proud but befuddled Dr. Clutterhouse. John Carney plays the bumbling and bombastic Mr. Mysto. Jon van der Put plays the dejected Piff the Magic Dragon. (I will write more about each of these gentlemen later.) Las Vegas star, Jeff Hobson, plays a flamboyant effeminate character (an interesting choice, since it allows him to flip the stereotype of the smarmy chauvinist magician on its head). Harry Anderson, known widely from his appearances on Saturday Night Live and his starring role in the comedy series Night Court, depicts a fast talking wise-guy con man. Other modern day magicians, such as Jeff McBride and Eugene Burger create characters that are magical exaggerations or extensions of their true characters. And still other world famous magicians such as Lance Burton and David Copperfield, perform essentially as themselves. Clearly there is no one right or wrong path. I was impacted deeply in my youth when I read the Harry Anderson biography, Wise Guy: Harry Anderson from Street to Screen, written by Mike Caveny. In the book, Harry Anderson is quoted saying that magicians spend far too much time trying to create original effects, and not nearly enough 10 11 Genii Forum. “Robert-Houdin, Roberto Giobbi, and an Actor Prepares.” Vernon, Dai. Vintage Vernon Volume 1. 16 time trying to create original characters.12 Regardless of the character selected, the magician must proceed with sincerity. Dr. Harlan Tarbell wrote in the Tarbell Course in Magic in 1928, “Audiences respect an artist who is sincere in his work…. He must make illusion seem like truth and must believe that the thing really happens.”13 Dr. Harlan Tarbell Contextualizing Physical Theater “My hope, perhaps utopian, is for my students to be consummate livers of life and complete artists on stage….Students we train acquire an understanding of acting and develop their imaginations.” Jacques Lecoq, The Moving Body Like Lance Burton and David Copperfield, we understand that not all performers may need to become accomplished actors to become successful. But, for the rest of us, let’s now explore more 12 13 Caveny, Mike. Wise Guy: Harry Anderson from the Street to the Screen. Tarbell, Harlan. Tarbell Course in Magic. 17 fully how magicians can benefit from acting. This requires us first to agree that magic is theater and that magic is truly a form of art. I am going to put forth that even though, at times, some magic performances may struggle for respectability, a contextual and well executed magic performance is indeed an art form, not merely a craft. And, as I discovered during my two and a half years studying at the Accademia dell’Arte, I am going to establish that magic not only belongs in theater but also aligns with the branch of theater referred to today as physical theater. This claim may prompt some historians immediately to point out the difficulty of this asking how a magic, an ancient practice, can fall under the more modern field of physical theater. I am going to take that head-on by demonstrating that both practices find their origins in ancient cultures and that while the term physical theater is more recent, the actual tradition is not. Suffice it to say magic, as physical theater, has the potential to be a high art form. Exactly when this occurs may be subjective, but, of course, the same problem exists with all art forms and crafts. If performance magic is a branch of physical theater, then to understand my physical acting approach to magic, it is first necessary to understand physical theater. In order to make any progress at all toward understanding physical theater, it is obviously necessary to first settle on some definitions. This, however, is easier said than done, as a universally agreed upon definition of physical theater remains maddeningly elusive. Many argue that all theater in some way is physical. One definition of physical theater suggests it is defined more by an absence of, rather than a presence of, certain traits. In Through the Body: A Practical Guide to Physical Theater, Dympha Callery suggests that physical theater is a marketing term which simply denotes any form of theater which is 18 something other than conventional commercial theater based on staged literature.14 Callery goes on to suggest that most forms of physical theater, if not remarkably similar, at least have a number of traits in common, among these that the work is often, but not always devised, interdisciplinary, and challenges the conventional passive role of the audience.15 These distinctions, however, are only useful to a point. Many physical theater productions do, in fact, use texts ranging from Beckett to Shakespeare. Many physical theater productions do not challenge the passive role of the audience. And, finally, many physical theater productions do not implement techniques found in other disciplines, such as dance, mime, music, magic, or circus. To further complicate matters, musical theater is inherently interdisciplinary in nature, featuring the vocal and dance abilities of the actors. Should musical theater, then, also be classified as physical theater? In The Theater and Its Double, Antonin Artaud puts forth a statement, which, while not a definition of physical theater per se, can potentially serve as one. He writes, “Instead of continuing to rely upon texts considered definitive and sacred, it is essential to put an end to the subjugation of the theater to the text, and to recover the notion of a kind of unique language half-way between gesture and thought.’16 It is along these lines that a first-round useful definition can be drawn. The preliminary definition for physical theater could be: theater in which text is not the dominant means of communication with the audience. Theater itself can be defined as: a performance put forward by a 14 Callery, Dymphna. Through the Body: A Practical Guide to Physical Theater. Ibid. 16 Artaud, Antonin. The Theater and Its Double. 15 19 live performer or performers in front of a live audience. Yet, when these definitions are adhered to, a number of complications still arise. Many forms of entertainment not considered to be physical theater fit nicely within these definitions. The most obvious example, perhaps, is Cirque du Soleil. This Canadian-based circus company undoubtedly puts forth live performances for live audiences and positively does not use text as a dominant form of communication. However, since it has applied theatrical techniques to circus as opposed to applying circus techniques to theater, Cirque du Soleil, has instead, been labelled as Noveau Cirque and bears very little resemblance to most physical theater productions. There are three general ways to resolve this conflict. The first, and most common, is to further narrow the definition of physical theater and of theater itself until the definitions are conflicting and unhelpful. Such, unfortunately, is the case today, in which one can receive an MFA degree in physical theater without being able to perfectly define the term! The second approach would be to discard the term completely and to create and stage works as one sees fit without regard to categories and definitions. This a most practical approach. While it may do much to further one’s own body of work, it does not help resolve problem of definitions which remain nonetheless. The third approach would require a wholesale re-examination of physical theater. Therefore, having narrowed and established a preliminary definition of the term, let’s now broaden our understanding of the field. Physical theater, as a classification, is relatively young, emerging from the post-war era of the 1950s, and gaining popularity during the 1960s and 1970s. The work of Meyerhold, Grotowski, Lecoq, Decroux, Artaud, and others gained prominence during this era. But the beginning of this reinvention of theater can be traced to an earlier time. Indeed, the phonic poetry of Dada-ist Hugo Ball at the 20 Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich in 1916 seems as if it could be the origin of modern physical theater. Yet, Ball himself was influenced by The Yellow Sound, a 1909 one act opera written by the Russian painter Wassily Kandinsky, which depicted six images but was devoid of dialogue or plot.17 Decades earlier, in 1868, French clockmaker turned conjurer Robert-Houdin wrote that “a prestidigitator is not a juggler but an actor playing the part of a magician.” 18 In fact, Robert-Houdin used stage artifices of nearly every nature to create illusions for his sophisticated Parisian audiences creating, in essence, an early act of physical theater. A century prior to that, throughout the 1700 and 1800s, pantomimes, puppet shows, and theatrical magic plays were among the most popular forms of mass entertainment and many techniques – from mirrors to trapdoors and flexible assistants to acrobatics – emerged as a means to make the impossible appear possible and the difficult appear effortless. In the 1600s, the physical and devised performances of the Italian Commedia dell’Arte flourished. In the East, traditional and modern forms of theater such as Kabuki, Noh, Suzuki, and Butoh have all emphasized physical communication above verbal text based communication. In other words, physical theater is as old, if not older than, and has more popular origins than, our so-called “conventional” or “traditional” theater, which we might say really entrenches itself in mainstream culture, first with Shakespeare, then Moliere, then Goldoni, then Chekov, and ultimately with the naturalistic methods perfected by Stanislavsky. The mistake we make, therefore, is not in defining physical theater incorrectly, but rather in allowing the conventional or traditional theater to occupy the terms conventional and traditional. 17 18 Sheppard, Richard. Modernism-Dada-Postmodernism. Robert-Houdin, Jean Eugene. The Secrets of Prestidigitation and Magic. 21 There is nothing about conventional or traditional theater which is more conventional or traditional than physical theater. Physical theater has always been around, but we only recently named it. Theater is theater. It must be a performance put forth by one or more performers. It must happen in, on, or at a space. There must be one or more audience members. From here we can make many further distinctions. If the audience has not chosen to be an audience than perhaps it is guerrilla theater. If the performance is based on the interpretation and recitation of text than perhaps it is literary theater. If the performance is based on a primarily nonverbal expression than perhaps it is physical theater. Maddening, isn’t it? These are all really exercises in labeling. My point is this: It is not physical theater which we fail to understand, it is theater itself which we have failed to understand. This being so, it becomes obvious that our understanding of what constitutes physical theater is radically underdeveloped. The works of Lecoq, Grotowski, Meyerhold, Decroux, and others, rather than propel physical theater forward as they rightfully should have had the unintended consequence of reducing its scope. This occurred for the simple reason that these works are all too often considered the beginning of physical theater, when, in fact, they are much nearer to the end. The current understanding of physical theater is such that it can more or less be encapsulated in a list of a dozen names, all of them flourishing in the 20 th century: Brecht, Lecoq, Gratowski, Meyerhold, Decroux, Brook, Bogart, Artaud, Paxton, Bausch, Laban, and Thierree. In fact, the field of physical theater is much more diverse than that and includes not only acting and dance, but also clowning, circus, puppetry, instrumental music, mime, shadowgraphy, hat twisting, paper and napkin 22 folding, rag painting, eccentric dance, mask, and, magic; and dates back hundreds, if not, thousands of years. Jacques Lecoq Magic as Physical Theater “Audiences aren’t really intrigued by technology. They’re interested in fantasy, and the best tricks involve everyday objects in extraordinary fairy tales: catching silver coins from the air, animating playing cards so they crawl out of a deck, producing a pretty assistant from a wisp of smoke in a glass cabinet. The same tricks that mystified our grandparents impress us today.” Jim Steinmeyer, The Glorious Deception Magic is theater in the broadest sense. And yet, since I have learned to deploy techniques I studied while earning my master’s degree in physical theater, I will move forward now and continue 23 to keep the two labels, magic and physical theater linked together. Linking the two affords us the opportunity to explore new and exciting possibilities in contextual conjuring. In his book, The Conjuring Anthology, Jim Steinmeyer, recognized as one of the greatest magical minds alive, writes, “The first approach to devising magic is the understanding that a theatrical illusion is, in fact, a little play. It’s a brief drama with characters, situations, development, a surprise, and a resolution.”19 Steinmeyer continues: Often magicians are, themselves, deceived about this and look past the necessary construction because the general form of a magic performance is deliberate and disarming: It appears to be a person presenting magic tricks, as different performers may present songs or juggle. Robert-Houdin’s famous dictim (you’ve heard it coming, haven’t you?) that a magician is really an actor playing the part of a magician, becomes clear and distinct from other entertainments. A singer is not an actor playing the part of a singer, a juggler is not an actor playing the part of a juggler. But the magician plays a role, even if he plays the role of ‘Himself, but now endowed with special secrets.’20 I maintain that magic belongs to physical theater because the primary means of communication with the audience revolves around the creation of an experience of wonder or amazement, through the employment of deceit and artifice. A very high percentage of magic is purely physical (silent acts performed to music), whereas, some magic is very verbose (such as that of Robert-Houdin; or as a contemporary example, historian and sleight of hand legend, Ricky Jay). Yet, even in these verbose magic performances, the magic itself remains the primary objective of the performer. In other words, the text is used to enhance the magic, both in terms of theatrics and deception; but the text is always subservient to the physical action of the magic. 19 20 Steinmeyer, Jim. Conjuring Anthology. “Conjuring Takes a Bow.” Ibid. 24 It occasionally happens that the magic takes a subservient role to the text or some other theatrical medium. In these cases, the performance ceases to be a performance of magic and becomes instead, whatever the primary means of communication may be. Thus, some, so called magic acts are really just silent clown acts, prop comedy acts, juggling demonstrations, or literary plays – which include or lampoon magic. These acts may be categorized appropriately, but not as magic acts. Having defined physical theater and argued for the inclusion of magic between its boundaries, then analyzing magic from that perspective should prove to be instructive. In what ways can the toolkit of the physical actor be applied to magic in order to improve or increase the opportunities for the average magician to create or perform better magic? Jim Steinmeyer 25 The Actor’s Body in Magic “The magic of drama is infinitely more powerful than the magic of trickery. It is as available to the conjurer as it is to the actor. The only difference is that actors take it for granted, whereas few conjurers are even aware that it exists.” Henning Nelms, Magic and Showmanship In his highly regarded book, The Five Points In Magic, Juan Tamariz presents physical and psychological techniques which employ the body in order to fool the minds of the spectators. He builds from what he refers to as the five points: the eyes, the voice, the hands, the feet, and the body. In his fifth point, the body, Tamariz offers a short and long solution to a common problem of magicians; body language which betrays a secret movement or concealed object. He writes: THE LONG WAY: Study body language, analyze all of your body movements and model them to communicate the ideas you wish when your perform. But caution: Doing too much of this may cause affectation and stiffness in your motions. THE SHORT WAY: Think, believe and be completely convinced that you are telling the truth. Visualize the coin in your hand and perfect the [secret] action, so that you can do it without thinking about it. This method is artistic and absolutely surefire. 21 Magic often depends on body language and Physical Theater is the study of how to better communicate through the whole body. Therefore, actor training is indispensable to the magician but unfortunately is often ignored. My approach to magic is now based on understanding the interconnectedness of the human body. Further, I advocate learning magic through internalizing three-dimensional sensations of movements rather than through two-dimensional or superficial imitations. 21 Tamariz, Juan. The Five Points in Magic. 26 Our understandings of our bodies are skewed from a young age. We are taught in school or preschool that: “The foot bone's connected to the leg bone. The leg bone's connected to the knee bone. The knee bone's connected to the thigh bone. The thigh bone's connected to the hip bone. The hip bone's connected to the backbone. The backbone's connected to the neck bone, etc.”22 This song, and skeleton models in general, tend to give us an understanding of the body based on each part being connected to the adjoining part. This is a fundamentally flawed understanding of the body. In fact, each part of a living body is connected to every other part. The heels are connected directly to the hips, not to mention the head. The shoulders are intricately connected to the pelvis; the fingers are connected to the chest. The body is not a series of bones loosely connected at joints, but an entire complex system of interwoven and interconnected muscles, tendons, bones, and fluid. Even Leonardo da Vinci’s The Vitruvian Man, depicting the divine proportions of a man (this happens to be the image used by Tamariz to illustrate his five points) is a study in two-dimensions. Since anatomical drawings are always two-dimensional, it seems as though we have come to understand the body in a two-dimensional way. 22 Strangely enough, “Dem Bones” has its origin as a spiritual song referring to “The Valley of Bones” which will rise one day at God’s command. Today, as far as I know, it is mostly used to teach anatomy and body parts to children. 27 Geometrically, in fact, the body is far more interesting than da Vinci’s drawing suggests. For an example, compare da Vinci’s study with A Modern Day Vitruvian Man, by Lance Harding: 23 Or, speaking three dimensionally, imagine the body composed not of triangles, but of cones, and imagine the cones, like spinning tops, spiraling and tilting in all directions, as my original sketches below illustrate. 23 Harding, Lance. A Modern Day Vitruvian Man. 28 The human body is such a complicated machine that it may very well be best represented conceptually by depicting an atomic model spiraling, outward from a core, through space in all directions simultaneously, each part having an effect on all other parts through inertia. Rather than isolate points on the body, it is more useful to think of broadening any given point, until that point becomes a wide surface. Now, imagine that wide surface connected not only to the adjoining surfaces, but to the surfaces farthest away. Thus, a single point in the shoulder widens to encompass the entire arm and chest; this surface engaged from fingertips to sternum, engages with the core of the body, the abdomen and spinal column, finally engaging through the legs and the feet. No point on the body is so isolated that it cannot be instantly and fully engaged with all other parts of the body. If we think of the body, not in terms of isolated points, but in terms of broad, engaged, and interconnected surfaces connected, not from head to toe, but from central to distal, then it may have a surprising impact on not only how we carry ourselves, both onstage and off, but also on how we use our bodies to deceive. Magicians learn early on – usually the hard way - that indicating guilt or tension, either through a facial expression or by the way the body is held, can unintentionally broadcast to the 29 audience that a “sleight” or “secret movement” is taking place. Knowing that, magicians must learn to conceal these betraying emotions and movements. In other words, like it or not, they must learn to “act.” First, the magician needs to understand how the body can move and behave during those emotions and then learn and deploy techniques to conceal the emotions and move the body in the proper way to protect against unintended betrayal. This may seem like a subtle example of what the magician actor may utilize, but one must always master the subtleties first in order to move up to larger or broader physical techniques that can also improve and enhance a magician’s performance. Conversely, mainstream actors can learn a lot about the subtle expressions and movements required in magic. From the dexterity and nimbleness required in blocking and misdirection, to the “patter” or scripted verbal text, to the actual effect itself - imagine how revelatory it would be for an actor to successfully perform an illusion before a live audience. The exactitude of body movement and control techniques necessary would be a great discovery and learning opportunity for an actor to experience. An Applied Example “The real secrets of magic are not merely trade secrets… They are not ingenious dodges which, when learned, enable their possessor to accomplish all that a skilled magician can do…They are of an order far higher than elementary matters of that description, and far removed from the popular conception of their nature…It will be found that, so far from being bound up in jugglery and paraphernalia, the true art in magic is purely intellectual in character, and comprises an infinitely varied range of interest.” Maskelyn and Devant, Our Magic In magic, there exists a certain kind of effect known by professionals as the self-working trick. These are tricks that, essentially don’t require any sleight of hand or concealed artifice in order to 30 achieve the outcome. These tricks can occur within virtually every medium from cards to apparatus, and may employ methods ranging from math to mirrors. However, I do not agree with this term. There is actually no such thing as a “self-working” trick. All tricks require presentation. In fact, the more self-working an effect is said to be, the more energy can, and probably should, be devoted to training the body to achieve the best presentation of the effect. As an example, I would like to dissect the physical approach of the most self-working effect in my thesis performance, the magical flower growth. I will discuss this particular effect and plot more in depth later on, but for now I will only say that it is a very clever mechanical device that allows a metal tube to be shown empty and placed on a table, yet when the tube is lifted a giant bush of flowers is revealed, much larger than the tube itself. This mechanical trick does not require sleight of hand. However, it is far from self-working in a presentational sense. Usually, speaking performers introduce a single flower and describe it as a rare flower which only blooms every hundred years, etc. Dropping the flower in the tube, and then immediately lifting it, they act surprised to find out the flower does not immediately bloom. Perhaps they used the wrong magic words? In this way – as a running gag – the effect repeatedly fails until, as a finale, the flowers bloom. This is a good example of plot confusion. I included this effect in my thesis performance and since I was eliminating the use of language as well as the bumbling comedy, the running gag approach to the trick was not justified theatrically. Do the flowers bloom or multiply? To help clarify, I reached for flower seeds in a well-marked packet I created and poured them down into the tube. I also dramatically added a layer of mystery by implying to the audience that the seeds would grow to 31 flowers only with the help of some drops of water from a conjured fishbowl. (Thusly, the title of my act references these mysterious Waters of Shangri-La). Next, as the magician / physical theater actor, I chose to integrate the body into this effect. I considered the following criteria: How would it feel vs. how would it look? (Use sensation, not imitation.) Body integration (How can every action actively involve the entire body?) Laban efforts or dynamics o Space (Direct or Indirect) o Weight (Strong or Light) o Time (Sudden or Sustained) Here, then, was how I ultimately applied the criteria: After showing the tube empty and thrusting my arm through the tube to cancel away any explanations of using mirrors, I placed the tube on a tray held by an assistant. Although I did not speak, I did shush the audience and looked at them intensely/mysteriously, holding the look (sustained/strong). I displayed a packet of seeds, and, tearing it open, poured the seeds slowly into the tube so that as the seeds (I actually used pepper corns) hit the metal tray and a faint rhythm of clinking sounds could be heard (further sustained time). Finally, I delivered another mysterious gaze into the audience (sustained/strong). Next, I dashed across the stage, dipping my fingers into a fish bowl located there, and, dashing back, I flicked the water into the tube and, apparently by accident, also splashed water on my fezwearing assistant (direct/light/sudden). This was repeated three times, with each cross more manic than the previous. (further direct/light/sudden). Next, with an elaborate gesture that included me 32 bending at the knee and then extending through my legs, arm and neck, I mimicked the action of causing the seeds to grow through magic. Or, more accurately, since no such action exists, I mimicked what I supposed the action might feel like. As I moved, I behaved as if my entire body was connected. I essentially imagined plunging my hands into the earth, grabbing the roots of plants, and dragging and stretching them out of the ground. Next, I released tension for one second and changed imagery from dragging to pushing, as I imagined lifting and pushing the plants skyward into the heavens (sustained/strong/indirect). I did not visualize the plants growing from the tray and filling the tube, but rather growing out of the center of the earth to the farthest reaches of heaven! My arms, tense and stretched toward those same heavens, stopped, then quickly described an arc from (roughly) 5 th to 1st position, grabbing the tube and lifting it straight up as quickly as possible. (indirect/light/sudden). Because of the mechanics of the flower bush, I feel that the trick is more deceptive if the tube is removed as quickly as possible. The reveal of the bloom-covered bush created an enormous relaxation during which I accomplished the following move that would have been difficult to conceal had my stage blocking been otherwise. My arms once again over my head, but this time holding a metal tube, I let go of the tube with my right hand. Both arms descended downward, describing an arc, once again from (roughly) 5th to 1st position, leaving my left arm at my side holding the tube, but with my right arm now conveniently behind the assistant’s back. The whole movement took only a second and in the mind of the audience, I had completed my magical effect. In reality, however, I had taken advantage of the relaxation which naturally follows a heightened tension in order to be ahead of the audience for my next trick, The Blooming Fez, addressed in a subsequent chapter. 33 24 The Laban Efforts Diagram Since it relates to what I have just written about time, space and weight in the performance of stage magic, I would like to again quote Jim Steinmeyer who wrote about turn of the 20th century Chinese Conjurer Ching Ling Foo: Foo would slow down his movements and pause over tiny details—adjusting the fold of a piece of fabric or showing the hands empty in a particular way. Through his leisurely pantomime, he caught the eye of the audience, smiled broadly, and teased them into watching closely. Then he would suddenly explode with movement.25 One observer of Foo commented, “When he was ready to act, he was as near to chain lightning in his movements. For a big man he was exceptionally graceful in swift movements.” 26 Steinmeyer goes on to write, “It is not true that the hand is quicker than the eye, and Ching Ling Foo’s magic did not depend on the speed of his movements. But his odd bursts of energy were disarming and exciting; they served as the punctuation for his flawless, precise, technique.”27 I used many of these same techniques in my fishbowl production, as well as all of my other effects; but I thought it best to discuss the magical plant growth for two reasons. 24 Laban, Rudolph von. Effort. Steinmeyer, Jim. The Glorious Deception. 26 Ibid. 27 Ibid. 25 34 First, to demonstrate that even the most self-working trick is far from self-working, theatrically speaking. And second, because fewer secrets are betrayed this way. Ching Ling Foo with his 100 pound water and apple filled porcelain bowl. 35 Part 2: Context 36 Cardini and Swan Before I go into more specifics of how I applied theatrical concepts in the creation of my own original magic act, I would like to provide a historical context for the branch of magic from which I chose to create this act: Silent Comedy Magic. The following magicians were not only conjurors or tricksters, but they were all also adept actors. They were skilled at creating illusions and dramatic contexts for their illusions. Those skills combined to make them the wonderful successes they were (and some who still are) on stage and wonderful examples for me. The first well-known silent comedy stage magician was Richard Valentine Pitchford; a British magician during the time of Vaudeville, who was better known by his stage name, Cardini. He performed alongside his wife and assistant known simply as “Swan.” Attired in evening dress, top hat and monocle, Cardini embodied the role of an inebriated gentleman - bothered, befuddled, and bemused by his magical manipulations right along with his audience! Swan, dressed as a bellhop, assisted Cardini by carrying items on and off the stage. Cardini was an extremely good comic actor with perfect delivery and reactions. He was also one of the greatest stage manipulators to ever live and could perform astounding card and ball manipulations wearing white dress gloves! Cardini had acquired this skill while practicing gloved card manipulations in freezing battleground trenches during World War I. He never missed an opportunity to use comedy acting to aid in the facilitation or cover of a magical “steal.” For instance, while registering surprise, his eyes would widen so large that his monocle would fall out. Laughing at this comedic moment, the audience’s attention relaxed. Cardini would retrieve the monocle, at the same 37 time executing a steal of some object from beneath his vest. In this way, using theatrics and acting, Cardini could often boldly make steals right out in the open – while drawing no heat or scrutiny. To this day, the act of Cardini, often referred to as The Suave Deceiver, remains one of the greatest silent comedy magic acts ever created, and the only comedy actor/magician stage manipulation act I have ever encountered. In 1958, the New England Magic Society proclaimed Cardini the "greatest exponent of pure sleight of hand the world has ever known.” Cardini and Swan Roy Benson The earliest example I found of an actor/magician parodying bad magic is Roy Benson. In the 1920s, Roy Benson, a highly skilled magician and eccentric nut comedy actor, opened his act around a silly effect gone wrong, which he called, Oh, See the Pretty Thing. Benson said it was a good idea to 38 open with the “lowest common denominator.”28 But, by the end of his act he was performing sophisticated billiard ball manipulations. His acting skill at evolving from eccentricity to elegance brought the entire audience along with him. Roy Benson Dr. Clutterhouse Elmer Gylleck was a professional architect from the Chicago area with an interest in magic and ventriloquism. As far as I can tell from my research, Gylleck, who performed as “Dr. Clutterhouse,” was the first to create an entire act as a bumbling magician in which many tricks comically go wrong. His show is full of drama, comedy and, of course, acting. He was haunted by a ghost, tangled up in a handkerchief with a mind of its own, and wrestled at length with a collapsing table before finally putting the table out of its misery with a revolver. Carried out rather bombastically to the tune of the Zenda Waltz, the Dr. Clutterhouse act won the prize for most original act at the 1938 National Convention of the Society of American Magicians. Details of the act were also published in a 1967 booklet titled, The Amazing Dr. Clutterhouse. 28 Karr, Todd and Levent. Benson by Starlight. 39 Dr. Clutterhouse Tommy Cooper and Carl Ballantine The next acts to have a significant impact on silent comedy magic were, ironically, two speaking acts: Tommy Cooper in Britain in 1947 and Carl Ballantine in the US in 1950. Although, Cooper and Ballantine were speaking performers, they were to have a profound influence on silent comedy magic. These two performers were both relatively competent magicians off stage, but onstage, their acting abilities really shined as each played magicians for whom their acts continually went horribly – and, of course, comically - wrong. Both gentlemen were known for their performance abilities outside the magic arena. Ballantine enjoyed a career of acting success appearing in film, Broadway and in the 1960’s popular television comedy series, McHale’s Navy. Cooper began in show business as a stand-up comedian and comic actor. His comedy magic television show ran for years until he very dramatically and tragically 40 died from a heart-attack on stage during a televised performance. Cooper had been such a great comedy physical actor/magician for so long, that many viewers initially believed his collapse was part of his act! Tommy Cooper Carl Ballantine Tom Palmer In the 1960s, undeniably influenced by the work of Cooper and Ballantine, Tom Palmer created and performed a successful silent dark comedy magic act. The acting in this show was quite dramatic as Palmer’s dark theme included a macabre ending in which the magician ends up “dead” on the stage from a self-inflicted gunshot wound while his assistant is left on the stage still appearing to be sawed in half. Palmer published the details of this act in 1969 as The Tom Palmer Comedy Act. Although the act is often referenced as one that contains no real magic, Palmer points out in his booklet that it has 41 a very strong multiplying candles sequence (including smoke pouring fourth from a pocket which appears to be on fire) and a genuine sawing in half illusion (although the lady is never restored). 29 Tom Palmer Tomsoni & Co. The next act with a significant impact of the field of silent comedy magic was American Johnny Thompson with his wife Pamela, who performed as Tomsoni & Co., Poland’s Greatest Magician. Tom Palmer, who had just retired his act and moved to Chicago to rebrand his career as a bizarre magician, passed his act down to Thompson. Thompson recounts it this way, “Tom Palmer had just gotten out of the business, and he gave me several things from his act. But you know how difficult it is to get in 29 Palmer, Tom. The Tom Palmer Comedy Act. 42 someone else's shoes. I tried, but the only gag that always worked for me was [my own bit] the bird crap on the shoulder.”30 Thompson actually did incorporate several gags from the Palmer act, however. In his own words he later acknowledged, “The dress coming off [of my assistant] is, of course, Tom Palmer's, but I worked on it to change it and make it my own. Tommy also gave me the Genii Tube gag with the thumb, and breaking the egg in the Egg Bag, but all the rest of the stuff really happened to me in the early days with the act.”31 Although Thompson incorporated some of the gags of Palmer and added some lowbrow humor of his own, he also incorporated a significant addition to the act. It happens that Thompson was a very technically skilled magician with doves, and the act was designed specifically as a parody of the dove act of the extraordinary bird and card manipulator, Channing Pollock. Thompson’s act, consequently, showcased bird magic at a very high level – and although much seems to go wrong in the act, the magic with the birds is absolutely flawless; everything else is a disaster. Thompson then, became the first silent comedy performer since Cardini, to interweave high level manipulation into a silent comedy piece. Unlike Cardini, however, the point of departure of Thompson’s act was to parody magic, specifically, the elegant act of Channing Pollock; one of the greatest magic acts of the 20th century. Thompson says, “I cleared it with Channing. But he never got to see it until 1976 -- and he thought it was very funny.”32 30 Thompson, Johnny. “Interview with Max Maven.” Genii Magazine. Ibid. 32 Ibid. 31 43 It is important to note that it took more than bringing together an inherited act and skill as a bird handler for Tomsoni & Co. to become a success. Thompson and his wife also had solid acting skills to convince audiences of “Tomsoni’s” unlikely Polish heritage and the faux cantankerous nature of their marital relationship. When birds defecated on his shoulder his wife looked more annoyed than concerned; when his fly was left unzipped and when her dress magically was ripped off, audiences believed and enjoyed. As actors and magicians then, is how this couple managed to successfully perform this seven minute act for more than three decades. Thompson retired his act on August 14, 2013, less than two weeks prior to this writing. He remains active as a magician’s consultant counting superstars David Blaine and Criss Angel among his clients. Johnny and Pamela Thompson Kohl & Co. Influenced by the work of Ballantine, Palmer, and Thompson; Dick Kohlhafer created a comedy magic act with his wife Kathy around 1977. Originally a two-person act, the act grew to include Dick’s brother and two nieces. This act, called Kohl & Co., is very similar to Thompson’s act in tone, but 44 without any apparent planned or good magic at all. In the climax of the act, the sawing in half apparatus goes awry, reminiscent of Palmer’s grim ending, but in this version the assistant is not abandoned “in half,” but instead slides out of the box onto the floor – blessedly in one complete piece. In 1987, Kohl & Co. competed in Las Vegas in a comedy magic competition and, thanks in part to a standing ovation led by legendary comedy magician Jay Marshall, won first place. The act was propelled to stardom. Although the act is not genius, either in terms of the magic, acting or comedy, it is a solid act which held down the fort, so to speak, for well over a decade. It served to inspire me due to its creative, albeit goofy, theatrical context. Kohl & Co. Voronin and Svetlana In 1998, Yevgeniy Voronin and Svetlana Perekhodova, (with backgrounds from Ukrainian theater and circus schools, respectively) joined the upscale American dinner cabaret, Teatro ZinZanni as original cast members, launching them both to international stardom. Voronin plays a dark and silent magician of the Cassanova/Dracula variety, whose mannerisms and features have been 45 compared to those of Buster Keaton and Jacques Tati. contortionist. His assistant and wife, Svetlana, is a Although she is not always seen onstage in Voronin’s act, she is always there somewhere, hiding in a tiny space. His comedy style is slower and darker than any comedy magician before him. He makes the audience wait. Sometimes they wait for nothing, though, because the comedy is hit and miss in this act. Some tricks go right, others go wrong, some are falsely exposed, but nothing is actually exposed. This act also hints at some adult themes and takes some absurdist turns, such as when after the act, Voronin inexplicably returns to the stage in a full Indian headdress. I believe that Voronin is the first, but not the last, internationally successful silent comedy magician to emerge from a drama school. Like Kohl & Company, this act doesn’t do any one particular illusion earth shatteringly well, but it does go in some interesting directions, is conceptualized by actor magicians, and may very well hold down the fort for another decade. Voronin and Svetlana 46 Scott the Magician and Ms. Muriel Scott Nelson, from California, and Muriel Brugman, from the Netherlands, began working together in 1999. A lifelong magician, Scott has interestingly also studied at The Commedia School in Denmark and both he and Muriel studied clowning at the Ecole Philippe Gaullier. In 2000, with an act together that was less than one year old, the duo won the Grand Prix at the world magic championships, FISM! This was the only comedy act to ever win a grand prix in the history of FISM, and Scott became only the second American to ever win that award! This act deploys comedy acting techniques and has some interesting ideas regarding the reworking and replotting of standard illusions but also plays a lot off of the same old comedy tropes. Scott plays the nerdy inept magician, and Muriel plays the over eager, but not-so-bright assistant. Their website claims that she is one of the few female clowns in the world, and mentions that she is often compared to Lucille Ball. The website has also rebranded, it seems, the duo under the name, Miss Muriel and her Magician. This provides a nice twist to the otherwise male-dominated and potentially chauvinistic field of magic. In a brief epilogue: Over the past decade, this duo has made some big mistakes - some on stage and some business related mistakes off stage which is limiting their success and appearing to make them sort of a flash in the pan. 33 They are worth mentioning, however, since no silent comedy magic act ever climbed so high, so fast. 33 This involves real mishaps on stage, cancelling a tour because a show wasn’t ready in time, and publicly blaming a known illusion builder for the cancellation when, in fact, they had made many rookie mistakes. 47 Scott the Magician and Ms. Muriel Gardner and James German duo Reinhard Haase (Roy Gardner) and Wolfgang Kaps (James) have, in my opinion, the finest silent comedy magic act since Cardini. My research has not turned up much as their efforts seem to be focused on working more than on marketing. There is one video depicting their act available online, from a TV performance, but I have not been able to date the video. This act initially seems to follow the comic clichés of the genre, but becomes a standout with role reversals and the physical acting abilities and mannerisms of both partners. Gardner plays a pompous magician (the heavy) who fails at his tricks. James is the British butler/assistant, who, with complete deadpan expression, ends up successfully performing the magic for the frustrated magician. Accompanied by a medley of classical music standards, this act is worth seeing. The magic largely consists of dove productions, but the duo ends with a nice surprising levitation/vanish illusion. 48 Interestingly, Reinhard Haase, competed at FISM in 1976 alongside another well-known German comedy magician, Walter Wittus. That act won the gold medal in comedy magic that year. It is unclear whether Haase and his current partner, Kaps, intend to compete in the upcoming FISM in 2015 in Rimini, Italy. But one thing is certain. I would not want to have to compete against this act! 49 A Pattern and an Opportunity ‘It is the small performer, countlessly in evidence everywhere, who, because he is not the artist and able to deliver real magic, turns his attempts into burlesque and causes people to look upon magic as a gigantic farce.” Louis C. Haley, The Dramatic Art of Magic The pattern was clear. Every silent comedy magic act since 1930, and virtually every comedy magic act period since 1950, used as a point of comic departure, the ineptness of magicians, both socially and technically. And although they varied their acting and physicality levels, it seems no silent comedy magic act since Cardini managed to avoid the cliché of the bumbling magician! I grew tired of watching these parody acts. A particular revelation occurred to me while watching several live performances in the basement of a communist club in Torino, Italy. Only a few months earlier I had debuted a shadowgraphy act (hand shadows) to great response. Although most people are familiar with the concepts of hand shadows, most have never seen this art form performed at any sort of high level. I remember when I first saw hand shadows performed on stage by my friend Louie Foxx in Seattle, being mesmerized along with the rest of the audience. I decided to learn hand shadows as soon as the opportunity arose. Then in Torino, I watched a duo perform a parody of a hand shadows act which required no talent, performing shadows such as a washing machine (a hand making a swirling motion) and, I believe, a dog which bore no resemblance to a dog. Naturally, the audience laughed quite heartily, but I was not laughing at all. The irony of parodying an act that most people had never even seen before was not lost on me. To me, it was almost pathetic to see these entertainers parodying an act which the audience would have appreciated much more 50 than the parody. And, why? Because they were too lazy to learn actual hand shadows? Or because we have simply been trained to laugh at this sort of thoughtless, effortless, comedy? The common depiction of the magician in stage comedy is a parody that outlives the parodied. Magicians are still parodying Alexander Herrmann (late 1800s) and Howard Thurston (Early 1900s)! No matter how en vogue it may be to parody the inept stage magician, it is a flawed approach, since most people have never seen a stage magician, either competent, or inept! Just because something works on stage or gets the laughs doesn’t mean that a better idea wouldn’t work better or get more laughs. Unlike satire, a parody attempts to comically mock something without providing anything new or purposeful for the audience. They usually vapidly prey on already overexposed icons like pop music stars, American Idols, boy wizards, Broadway musicals, and teen vampire movies. Artistically speaking, it is quite dangerous to create a parody of stereotypes. And to me, to parody a dying art form, such as shadowgraphy, is ignorant, both comically and artistically. Artists have a certain duty to the public; not to only give them what they want, but to give them what they deserve, or what the artist believes they need, or what they might want if they knew it existed. Additionally, I am not mean spirited enough to enjoy doing this sort of put-down comedy. I love quality magic, as do most people (when/if they see it) and so, for my project, I was determined to share my love of good magic with the audience. I did not want to confirm what audiences have been taught to believe: Magic is something which should be ridiculed and sneered at - that magicians are clowns. I wanted the audience to leave thinking and saying, “Wow! I didn’t realize how cool magic is!” 51 My goal was, then, to create a comedy magic act that succeeded in finding comedy which did not come at the expense of the magic. But I wouldn’t allow the magic to happen at the expense of the comedy. I needed a new way. Clown “Magic” Act from Cirque du Soleil’s, “Varekai” George Oscar “GOB” Bluth “’Illusion,’ Michael. A trick is something a whore does for money...or cocaine!” GOB, Arrested Development The character of George Oscar “GOB” Bluth from Fox’s 2003 hit, and smart, sitcom Arrested Development is interesting enough to merit some discussion. GOB’s character is an amateur magician, but rich enough to afford elaborate equipment. Of course, his character is entirely inept, but due to the nature of the sitcom, the audience is also allowed to see the perversion of GOB’s character off stage. 52 GOB is one of the few magician parodies that belongs to the new era of magic, which makes it a welcome development. GOB parodies, roughly, the David Copperfield era of open shirt, tight pants magicians with gratuitous choreography set to rock music. Because we get to watch GOB offstage as well, he also parodies the desperation and disillusionment that many straight magicians experience with women. GOB on judging beauty pageants: “First place chick is hot, but has an attitude, doesn't date magicians. Second place is someone weird usually, like a Chinese girl or a geologist. But third place, although a little bit plain, has super low self-esteem.”34 Taking into consideration GOB’s offstage presence in the show, his character actually offers something new to the otherwise tired cliché of the inept stage magician. Onstage, he also advances the parody by shifting the parody from the 1920s magician to the 1990s magician. (Incidentally, 1990s style magic still largely rules Las Vegas today.) This parody seems to resonate strongly with the public, although I believe that the parody of magic still has far more exposure than actual magic. This, then, creates a very large opportunity for a powerful stage performer to shatter the stereotypes. Audiences are not expecting to be impressed with magic. GOB Bluth, from Fox’s 2003 hit sitcom, Arrested Development 34 Greenspan, Sam. “11 Most Profound Quotes by GOB on Arrested Development.” 53 Beyond GOB “Art is either plagiarism or revolution.” Marcel Duchamp In 2007, I visited the modern art wing at the Denver Museum of Art. As always, there were many eyebrow raising works of art, such as the smashed cigarette butts of Damien Hurst. Sitting against a white wall, a few feet from a service door, was a black trash bag filled with, presumably, trash. I assume that the custodians were in the process of taking out the trash (this was at a catered private event, so people were wandering around with disposable plates and plastic champagne flutes). But, also, I was open to the possibility that the trash bag was actually an art installation. I decided to stay around to see whether, at any second, a custodian would come through the service door and grab the bag - or not. After a time during which no custodian arrived, I decided to leave because I didn’t want to know the truth. I loved the ambiguity of not being able to tell the difference between acclaimed art, and literally, trash. Today’s mainstream magic has reached a similar point. To be clear, amazing things are happening right now within the field of magic. But the public’s mainstream awareness of magic has become limited primarily to parodies like GOB Bluth, real-life caricatures like Criss Angel and hacks on America’s Got Talent (where often the worst and most controversial magic acts are televised), and David Blaine. Criss Angel and David Blaine (the two most famous and commercially successful magicians, post-Copperfield) are virtually impossible to parody being, generally, meta-parodies themselves. Blaine, wearing simply jeans and t-shirt or hoody, uses a lethargic style of non-performance, a 54 monotone voice, and a glassy expression. Angel has a punk-goth, over-the-top appearance with a pseudo spiritual style of non-performance all his own. These two public figures (neither of them even remotely near to the top of the field in magic expertise) prop themselves up with committees of real magic experts and advisors (from the top of the field) who spoon-feed these two mediocre performers some of the most innovative work in magic. These magic consultants, along with a healthy dose of trick editing and paid audience extras, create too-good-to-be-true magic on TV. Incidentally, Criss Angel’s live Cirque du Soleil show, BeLIEve, has been universally panned by critics and spectators everywhere and is listed as one of the top 10 things NOT to do in Las Vegas!35 But, apparently Criss’s ten-year multi-million dollar contract is ironclad, even as audiences walk out of the show night after night.36 These two, like the bags of trash in the museum, have reached a state where the parody is almost indistinguishable from the parodied. These unique styles of non-showmanship, make it difficult to distinguish between a bad showman and a non-showman! 35 36 Shallcross, Juliana. “Ten Things You Should NOT Do In Vegas.” Ibid. 55 A Second Way “Never make a spectator into a sucker.” Nate Leipzig There also exists in magic, a second type of parody. This type of parody is rare, but becoming more popular, perhaps. It follows in the footsteps of The Great Tomsoni and it parodies magic or magicians, but not at the expense of the magic effects performed. The magic works correctly, but the magician himself is dysfunctional or has dysfunctional relationships with his audience, props, or assistants. This type of parody is difficult to do, because it requires first, technical competence, and second, a strong theatrical background. Two contemporary performers of this ‘high style’ of parody come to mind. John Carney, a world class American creator and technician with an extensive theatrical background, in the character of Mr. Mysto. And Jon van der Put, a British trick originator who created the character of Piff the Magic Dragon after attending drama school. Both of these characters are talkers and by infusing stand-up style comedy with original magical characters, also actors. Piff is a dejected magic dragon with a pet Chihuahua and a penchant for hitting on princesses in the audience. He plays the role of a languid depressed fellow – and he says it’s because of the fame and success of his older brother, not Puff, as everyone expects, but Steve (?!) as Piff later points out. This clever role of “Piff” catapulted van der Put, who had worked as a for years as a moderately successful close-up magician, into a world-wide comedy sensation. 56 John Carney plays his Mr. Mysto character as an over-puffed and arrogant hack magician who comes from that old putdown school of comedy magic. He seems to craft his acting efforts around the pages of the directions to nearly every magic shop trick sold between 1950 and 1990 which began like this: “The magician selects a victim (volunteer) from the audience.” Ubiquitous gags of that day were along the lines of: “Hold out your hand. (spectator complies.)” “No, the clean one.” Consider the toilet plunger hat trick, for example, very popular in the 1980s and 1990s. A child is selected to assist and is given a wizard hat with an elastic strap to wear. At one point the hat is removed which reveals a plunger to be resting on top of the child’s head. The child is left standing on stage while the audience points and laughs - oblivious to what the audience is pointing and laughing at. I have a colleague who told me he still painfully remembers when he was the child-volunteervictim of this particularly mean-spirited magic prank. (He claims that today he has a bald spot located exactly where the plunger sat!) Is it any wonder that some people grow up hating magicians? The foremost philosopher on magic, Eugene Burger, has written at length about the fallacy of these oldstyle self-defeating attempts at comedy.37 Thankfully this misguided comedy at the expense of the spectators is now considered outdated and old-fashioned, in no small part, thanks to the writing of Burger. John Carney’s success with his well-developed character, Mr. Mysto, then, actually serves to further those writings through satire and parody. His Mr. Mysto is an absolutely hilarious example of 37 Burger, Eugene. Mastering the Art of Magic. 57 the worst magician ever, who happens to surprise the audience along the way with some of the world’s most well executed magic.38 John Carney as Mr. Mysto 38 I attended a John Carney show once when he performed as Mysto, I was disappointed at first to see a ‘character,’ since I had really come to see John work. During the show, I was laughing to the point of tears AND completely fooled by much of the magic. Today, I realize how lucky I was to see Mr. Mysto that night, instead of John Carney as himself. 58 Part 3: Application 59 The Cookie in the Hat “Auguste: (disappointed) I saw how he did it. It’s not that hard. You’ll see. (he approaches the owner of the hat) Lend me your hat, sir. The cookie was good. Now I’ll make you an even better one. (The spectator hands him his hat) Many thanks, sir.” Tristan Remy, Clown Scenes Armed with the historic character applications from the past and surrounded by a variety of current popular magicians who exhibited varying levels of acting awareness, development and ability, I now prepared to devise my own actor/magician approach to my newest act. In addition to drawing from my physical theater training, I should point out that I drew a bit from my previous experience at creating a silent magic act. Although I have performed a range of magic show styles since I was eight, it wasn’t until I was 26 that I created and performed my first silent magic parody act. It involved a combination of tricks going right and tricks gone awry. It also involved me, as a smug magician who produces several glasses and bottles – each full of alcohol. Upon conjuring each glass, the magician would raise the container in a toast to the audience, then gulp down the beverage, becoming more inebriated as the show progressed. Eventually he drinks straight out of bottles, and finally gulps from a hip flask. Of course, as the magician gets drunk, the magic goes increasingly and dangerously askew. For a number of reasons, logistically, theatrically, and artistically, I only performed this act a handful of times. Although it was always well received by audiences, this didn’t give me too much confidence since audiences are still programmed to laugh at magic parodies. I kept feeling like the comic premise was shallow (and too easily influenced by the persona and certain bits of business of Voronin), and the magic too weak. Further, the act took about an hour to set up and weighed about a ton. I decided to go back to the drawing board. 60 For my thesis project, I knew I wanted to stay in the silent comedy genre. But I also was committed to creating something original - something with a more developed character who utilized physical theater and acting techniques - and something with stronger magic. First, I decided to pursue an ensemble, rather than a solo, piece. For those paying close attention, you may have noticed that outside the work of Dr. Clutterhouse in the 1930s, no successful silent comedy magic act has ever worked solo. An ensemble piece also provides opportunities for different characters to interact together. Next, drawing from physical theater, I decided to explore the physical field of clowning, rather than magic, for inspiration. In the classic book of popular European clown scenes from the first half of the 1900s, called Clown Scenes, collected by Tristan Remy, I found one scene that proved particularly useful. The scene, The Cookie in the Hat, is a three-handed routine originally performed by White Clown, Auguste, and Ringmaster. The routine, as set down by Remy in 1950, was performed by Lucien Sénéchal (Lulu) as White Clown, Robert Bellego (Tonio) as Auguste, and Georges Loyal as Ringmaster. In this clown entrée, the White Clown borrows a hat from an audience member and, through sleight of hand, seems to bake a cookie in the hat. He returns the hat, unharmed, along with the cookie, to the audience member. The Auguste and Ringmaster have been watching the proceedings, and as the White Clown exits to clean his hands he instructs the Auguste not to touch the sugar. Naturally, the Auguste cannot resist the temptation to try and recreate the feat. Unaware of the artifice openly employed by the White Clown, the Auguste makes an enormous mess in the hat. Eventually, the White Clown returns and explains that he saw the whole thing coming and switched 61 the spectator’s hat for a duplicate. The original hat is returned thanks to the Deus ex machina, and the White Clown and Auguste continue to quarrel. A wonderful version of this act, now known as Les Bonbons was performed by Angelo Munoz as Auguste, alongside Enrico Caroli, Jr. as Clown, and Orlando Arias as Second Auguste at the Circus Festival of Monte Carlo in 2002. The trio won the bronze prize at that event. Arias, Caroli Jr., and Munoz perform “Les Bonbons” at Monte Carlo (2002) The Sorcerer’s Apprentice Ach, da kommt der Meister! Herr, die Not ist groß! Die ich rief, die Geister, werd' ich nun nicht los. Ah, here comes the master! I have need of Thee! from the spirits that I called Sir, deliver me!39 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice Along with the clown scene, I was intrigued by Der Zauberlehrling, or The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, a 14 stanza poem written by German writer Goethe in 1797. 39 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von. Der Zauberlehrling. 62 It tells the tale of an apprentice left alone in his master’s workshop. Tired of performing chores, the apprentice uses magic in which he is not fully trained, to assist with the chores. However, the magic quickly spirals out of his control as an animated broom rapidly floods the workshop with pails of water. In an attempt to break the spell, the apprentice splits the broom with an axe, but the broom divides into two brooms and the rate of the flooding is doubled. Finally, the sorcerer returns just in time to break the spell and admonish the apprentice that spirits should only be summoned by the master. In 1897, a symphonic poem was written by Paul Dukas entitled, L'Apprenti Sorcier, which musically tells Goethe’s tale. This music accompanies the 1940 animated version of the story in the Walt Disney movie Fantasia, in which Mickey Mouse masterfully plays the title role. Perhaps the famous clown scene The Cookie in the Hat was inspired by the structure of Goethe’s famous poem. Regardless of the origin of the clown scene, it was clear that the structure of The Sorcerer’s Apprentice could provide the narrative structure, not only for a clown scene, but for a magic act! As obvious as the connection is, I do not believe it has been done before. Illustration by S. Barth, (circa 1822) 63 The Conjurer’s Assistants “And so, I put the magic eggs into my hat. ‘Abracadabra,’ to coin a phrase. And voila, the eggs have turned into... Messy, messy, messy.” Professor Hinkle, Frosty the Snowman In the 1932 MGM film, Movie Crazy, by Harold Lloyd, Lloyd finds himself at a dinner party having accidentally put on the tailcoat of a magician instead of his own. Throughout the dinner, Lloyd repeatedly finds himself in awkward situations as a dove, eggs, sausages, dolls, clotheslines, and even a white rabbit issue forth uncontrollably from his sleeves and pockets, wreaking havoc on the other guests, both sober and intoxicated. A squirting boutonniere and a box full of mice add the final insults to injury in this protracted twelve minute scene. Lloyd’s acting prowess didn’t make him a good magician as that scene did not have him “performing” magic per se, but simply becoming the hapless and hilarious victim of magic accessories. However, many other accomplished actors have applied their acting talents to great use when performing as actual magicians, including the great Jackie Gleason in the 1950s on the television show Cavalcade of Stars. Gleason, in a turban and flowing genie pants and flanked by two beautiful assistants, silently and successfully performed a variety of basic effects, but making great use of double takes, comic timing, and exaggerated mannerisms. But, back to magician’s clothing and the magic therein, in the 1969 Rankin/Bass Claymation feature, Frosty the Snowman, the top hat of Professor Hinkle (described by the narrator as, “just about the worst magician in the world”) blows away, and brings Frosty to life when it lands on his head. 64 The magic hat idea is also found in the 1940s Disney version of The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. The wizard removes his hat and places it, glowing, on the work bench. Apprentice Mickey Mouse places the glowing hat on his head and assumes the confidence and some of the magic abilities of the sorcerer. I thought it would be an interesting approach to adapt the ideas for my new silent comedy magic piece by updating the concept of the sorcerer’s apprentice to the concept of the conjurer’s assistants. Since a stage conjurer’s powers lie, quite literally at times, in his tailcoat, it seemed logical for an assistant to gain powers by donning the magician’s jacket. The outline for the concept would be this: A grand magician comes on stage with two assistants to begin Act I. He successfully performs a variety of illusions with bravado, bows and exits the stage – after taking off his jacket and draping it on a chair. Act II would begin with the assistants remaining on stage, ostensibly to clean up after the performance. The male assistant is drawn to the magician’s jacket and, in spite of protestations from the female assistant, puts it on. Suddenly, he is able to produce two bouquets of flowers and impresses the female assistant into becoming an accessory. The two go on to attempt many of the same effects the real magician had done previously – but with disastrous and hilarious results. Finally, Act III, in which, in the midst the assistants’ disarray, the “off-the-clock” magician returns on stage with reading material in one hand and a drink in the other. Alarmed by the chaotic scene the assistants are in and aware that the audience has remained in the theater, the magician gruffly takes back his jacket and goes about magically setting things right. My outline would, of course, be enriched by all the bits of physical business I would develop and the enhanced personalities created for each of the three characters in this ensemble piece. 65 Harold Lloyd, “Movie Crazy.” 1932 The Omelette in the Hat “I then looked at the hat: the crown was quite burned and stained.…for my supernatural power could not repair a hat. My only chance was to gain time; so I continued the trick, with a tolerably easy air, and produced to the public a splendidly cooked omelette, which I had enough courage left to season with a few jokes.” Jean Eugene Robert-Houdin, Memoirs “When magic was magic and men wore hats.” Jim Steinmeyer, Conjuring Anthology One of the effects I was intrigued with performing is conjuring an omelette in a borrowed hat. This is a classic effect in magic, appearing in many turn of the century magic texts. It dates at least to 1749 when a French magician named Delisle baked an omelette in a borrowed hat.40 Hyman Saunders, in 1775, substituted pancakes during a tour of Jamaica. 41 Candy and cupcakes have been used as well, and Robert-Houdin describes an unfortunate encounter of his own with this effect in his 1868 memoirs.42 40 Robert-Houdin, Jean Eugene. The Secrets of Prestidigitation and Magic. “Cake Baked in a Hat.” Magicpedia. 42 Ibid. 41 66 It is likely then, that this standard magic effect may have found its way into the clown repertoire as The Cookie in the Hat. Although the description Remy gives of the routine describes the clown as obviously (to everyone but the Auguste) using artifice to accomplish the trick, modern versions of the routine such as Les Bonbons by Munoz, Caroli Jr, and Arias, have the clown pulling off the trick legitimately, to the bewilderment of the audience, as well as the Auguste. In the early 1900s, Al Baker made a signature piece of the cake in hat trick. According to his son-in-law, the late Chicago magic legend, Jay Marshall, “When Al performed it, it wasn’t a trick, it was a goddam event!”43 John Carney, as Mr. Mysto, performs this too, baking a cupcake in a borrowed shoe. Carney also brings the house down with his hilarious performance. I had even played around with a version of this trick when I was in my early teens. Now, many years later, I decided that this effect, coupled with the classic clown scene, would form the theatrical structure of my new piece. Al Baker delights with the cake in hat trick 43 Marshall, Alexander “Sandy.” Beating a Dead Horse: The Life and Times of Jay Marshall. 67 The Comedy Levitation “Thurston held a crystal ball in front of Fernanda’s eyes and paused, surveying her expression. After a moment, her long dark lashes fluttered closed. He snapped his fingers, and she fell backward, rigid as a board, into the hands of an awaiting assistant.” Jim Steinmeyer, The Last Greatest Magician in the World Next, it occurred to me that the old comedy levitation trick would be useful in creating comedy situations for the assistants. I had come across illustrations of this effect in a children’s magic book when I was young, and filed away the idea, in my head, as a possible inexpensive and funny illusion. The method of the illusion is shown in the illustrations below: 44 This illusion seemed tailor made for this act for a number of reasons. First, it can work in two ways: as a real levitation, or as a comedy exposé when the sheet is “accidentally” removed. Second, the trick allows for the assistant who levitates to be placed in a hypnotic trance – which is full of comic potential. Third, my female assistant for this act was very flexible, and the exposé would 44 Kettlekamp, Larry. Spooky Magic. 68 showcase her physical talents. Finally, while many silent comedy magic acts have spoofed the sawing in half illusion; few, if any, have spoofed the levitation. Excited, I ordered two mannequin lower legs from Thailand. When they finally arrived, my female assistant and I experimented with them. In less than an hour we agreed that the trick was unworkable in any way short of a total farce. It was impossible to make this illusion look real. Although the book, Spooky Magic, claims that the trick can be done with either a serious or funny ending,45 we concluded that this is not actually the case. That was the end of the comedy levitation. 45 Kettlekamp, Larry. Spooky Magic. 69 Blackstone’s Enchanted Garden “But the mind, not the eye, sees. The mind, not the ear, hears. The mind, not the fingers, feels. So it is with all of the senses. Ultimately the sense impression is a function of the mind.” Dariel Fitzkee, Showmanship for Magicians My goals in this act, however, were not strictly comical. I was committed to creating a piece which, while funny, also created a strong magical experience for the audience. I was particularly interested in the following golden-age stage shows, from the first half of the 20 th century: Howard Thurston’s Wonder Show of the Universe, Harry Blackstone’s Show of 1001 Wonders, and Dante’s Sim Sala Bim. Thankfully, a wonderful series of books, written relatively recently by Jim Steinmeyer, shone a bright light on this otherwise cloudy topic of golden-age magic performers. Further, the increasing amount of footage available on YouTube and other media-sharing websites have allowed me to watch footage—which previously would have required a visit to the Smithsonian Institute—without even changing out of my pajamas! My interest in golden age magic came about in an interesting way. During my earlier attempts at creating a spoof magic act, I had dabbled with the old bouquet-of-flowers-from-the-sleeve trick. To my surprise, I discovered that there were actually well-made feather bouquets and very formal techniques to this old trick, that when properly executed, was surprisingly effective. The year before I lived in Tuscany and was pursuing my MFA, I lived in Baltimore. It is also the home to the famous Denny & Lee Magic Shop. There, Denny had two large, beautiful, vintage feather bouquets and I asked about the price. He said he would sell them for $200 each, but only because he 70 needed money. These flowers were made by Horace Marshall of Ohio, he told me, the same man who had made all of the feather flowers for Blackstone’s Enchanted Garden act back in the early 20th century. I went home with my new flowers and researched Blackstone. I was amazed to find actual footage of him performing on stage. Although I had been studying magic since I was eight, I had never seen Blackstone before. For me, it was a revelation. According to an interview with magic consultant, Charles Reynolds in Magic magazine: [Blackstone] had fantastic charisma. And he did a good, tight, efficient show. He was not a dancer. [laughs] You know, I look at magic acts today and it seems to me that so much motion is wasted…. I think the one-hour show that he did was, to this day, the tightest, best magic show I’ve ever seen. I’ve talked to many people who saw Blackstone and they think the same thing. I know Kellar said he thought Blackstone was the best. And Vernon said to me that he thought Blackstone was the best. The other person who said it to me was Jay Marshall. I asked, “Who was the best magician you ever saw?” and Jay said, “Blackstone.” Blackstone opened his stage show with an elaborate sequence in the act I mentioned, The Enchanted Garden, in which he removed his cape then threw his gloves upward where they changed into a live dove that flew in circled above the spectators. Before the audience could register shock, he next produced four giant bouquets, handing them off to his bevy of beautiful female assistants. During the act, in addition to scores of bouquets, Blackstone had also caused a single flower to grow into many, and for a bouquet to re-bloom after its flowers were plucked. These effects were followed with the production of a large bowl filled with goldfish, and the transformation of a lady into a giant bouquet. 71 I had my flowers with me in Italy now, and I was determined to find a way to theatrical carry on a bit of the Blackstone legacy and incorporate a dramatic flower production into my new Conjuror’s Assistants piece. Harry Blackstone Sr. Magical Plots “…like any talented magician, Thurston selected illusions that did not rely on the latest bits of technology, but on universal, fairy-tale themes: causing a person to float in the air, contacting the spirits, appearance, disappearance, destruction and restoration.” Jim Steinmeyer, The Last Greatest Magician in the World I had a concept, an approach, and I also wanted a clear plot. Dai Vernon, in his lectures, was clear that a good magical effect needed to have a simple and engaging plot. He railed against magicians who overcomplicated effects, or added ‘kicker’ endings which were, in fact, anti-climactic 72 and confusing. Vernon is famous for the maxim that “confusion isn’t magic” 46 and, in fact, several useful pieces of wisdom can be found within that simple phrase. Vernon stated that you should be able to explain the plot of a trick in a single sentence. 47 Today, the plot focus on magic is carried on by the brilliant magical thinker, Jim Steinmeyer. In his essay, Conjuring Takes a Bow, Steinmeyer writes: Start with a plot. This will serve as a blueprint for the effect. The notion of a plot may seem daunting to you. It sounds so ‘Theater 101.’ But there’s nothing pretentious about it. Jokes have plots. Songs have plots. Listen to the lyrics of a good song, and you’ll find that it has a premise, development and a resolution. It starts somewhere. It goes somewhere. …I actually think that it’s very useful to evaluate magic tricks by their high concepts. Express the plot in one terse statement – a sentence or less – which attempts to caption the intrigue for an audience and encompass the basic idea of the effect. Imagine this statement as the brief description that you want the audience to use when describing the effect later to their friends.48 The decision to focus on plots was a particularly important one for me, since I had decided to present this act silently. Without the language to help me convey complicated plot points and historical precedents, I was forced instead to choose effects with very simple, direct, and hopefully, engaging plots. One of the most engaging plots to come to mind in the canon of magic – besides the omelette in a borrowed hat – was the magical plant growth. Blackstone had grown an entire garden, but before him, Kellar, Buatier de Kolta, Robert-Houdin, and many others, had caused single plants to grow with their magical powers. In his memoirs, Robert-Houdin describes one such performance by Italian conjurer, Comte. “After sowing seeds in some earth contained in a small cup, he spread over 46 Vernon, Dai. Vintage Vernon Volumes 1. Ibid. 48 Steinmeyer, Jim. Conjuring Anthology. “Conjuring Takes a Bow.” 47 73 this earth some burning liquid, and covered it with a bell, which, as he said, was intended to concentrate the heat and stimulate vegetation. In fact, a few seconds later, a bouquet of varied flowers appeared in the cup.”49 This effect dates back at least to the Hindu Fakirs of India, where it was, and still remains, a popular item among street performers. The Fakirs cause a mango seed to bloom into a small fruit bearing tree, in stages, while covered with a large cloth. In the mid-1800s, Robert-Houdin performed what is perhaps the pinnacle of this plot when he caused an orange tree automaton to bloom real blossoms and fruit. One of the oranges was left on the tree, and when the orange was split open, a borrowed ladies handkerchief emerged, suspended from its corners by two mechanical butterflies. (Although, heavily exaggerated, this plot can be seen in the 2006 film The Illusionist, starring Ed Norton.) Ultimately, I believe that the plot of this effect is essentially the manipulation of time. Although each performer I have named presents this effect in a different way, I preferred the Blackstone method. (I am changing my opinion on this, though, and plan to experiment with different methods in the future.) In addition to the Baltimore flowers, I had also recently taken the opportunity to purchase a vintage flower blooming apparatus exactly like Blackstone’s for $450 – well under the current market price - so I decided to insert this quick effect with a strong plot into my thesis performance, as well. I had established my flower growths. Next, I decided to make a fishbowl appear. In my earlier drunken magic spoof act, I had produced a large round fishbowl from a top hat. Later, in Baltimore, after buying the Marshall flower bouquets from Denny & Lee, I toyed around with a different fishbowl production using a table. I went so far as to buy a bowl, construct a special table, sew a large foulard, 49 Robert-Houdin, Jean Eugene. The Secrets of Prestidigitation and Magic. 74 and demonstrate the trick for some friends who were over for dinner. They were fooled and I was encouraged. The magical production of a large water-filled bowl was first performed in the US by Chinese magicians in the 19th century, such as Ching Ling Foo. Interestingly, however, it was ultimately popularized by American magician William Robinson, who performed his act masquerading as a Chinese conjurer with his obviously derivative name from his authentically Chinese counterpart Chung Ling Soo. Interestingly, the American’s show climaxed with a bullet catch – an effect that went wrong in 1918, which left Robinson dead with a bullet in his chest. The magicians who either were of actual Asian descent or pretended to be, usually performed in flowing robes, offering ample opportunities to conceal a fishbowl. Modern performers in the European and American styles gave up such garbs long ago and needed a different or “modern” fishbowl production, able to be performed in a tailcoat. Unlike the flowers, I did not have my fishbowl table from the US here with me in Italy – so my decision to build this production anew was not an entirely easy one. I had to build it with a severely limited budget and resources. Ultimately, since my only power tool was a drill borrowed from a neighbor, I completely redesigned, and, in the process, significantly improved this 100-year old “modern” trick. As I continued to develop my theatrical plot for the Conjuror’s Assistants, my artistic arguments for including the fishbowl were as follows: First, it has a simple plot –profound in its connotations of creating life. Second, “magical water” from the bowl could also be used to also make my blooming flower plant “grow,” and could later be used to hypnotize my assistant for my planned levitation. (The doomed artificial legs hadn’t arrived from Thailand yet.) Third, the water would 75 present comical opportunities to my assistants in Act II, the section in which they vainly attempt many of the effects I performed prior. For instance, they could use the fishbowl water to put out a fire they would “accidentally” ignite and other comical bits. (Not coincidentally, although the circumstances surrounding the effect are exaggerated, this trick is referenced in the other 2006 film about magic, The Prestige starring Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman.) With one large plant growth, two large bouquets, and a large fishbowl production like Blackstone, I was on my way to having my own miniature version of his Enchanted Garden. The Spirits “Eeny, meeny, jelly beanie, the spirits are about to speak.” Bullwinkle, The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show Now I turned to the “spirits” for my next idea. A staple of séances and spook shows, the Spirit Cabinet effect began in the 1850s with two American brothers known as the Davenport Brothers. The 76 men were bound with ropes and placed inside a wooden cabinet along with bells, pie tins, and musical instruments. When the doors were closed, the instruments mysteriously played and pie tins flew, yet when the doors were opened, the men were seen still firmly tied. The Davenport Brothers claimed that these phenomena were caused by genuine spirit manifestations, and many people believed them! A young man named Harry Kellar, working as an assistant for the Davenport Brothers, was able to ascertain the secrets to the spirit cabinet. Kellar set out on his own, taking these secrets with him. He later bribed another assistant, this one to the British magician John Nevil Maskelyne to defect and bring the secret of Maskelyne’s floating lady illusion to America. Thus, armed with the spirit cabinet and the levitation, Kellar went on to become the most successful magician in America at the time. It is in this way, that the mediumistic effect of the spirit cabinet entered the realm of the stage magician. Later, Kellar’s retirement in 1908 ushered in a new era of stage magic with Harry Houdini and Howard Thurston at the forefront. Because the spirit cabinet effect involves tying up an assistant and includes the drama of having things sail about, it offered great opportunities for physical comedy. I would later make this a showpiece effect for my piece – both in Act I - during which the grand magician performs and well as Act II, in which the assistants muck up the works. I first looked toward Victorian times for another “spooky” effect I could adapt. In 1888, John Nevil Maskelyne was the first to command a handkerchief to dance by itself – like a tiny phantom hopping and flying on stage. Some Victorian-era performers and vaudevillians, such as female medium and psychic, Anna Eva Fay, presented similar effects as “genuine” spirit manifestations. 77 Kellar presented the dancing handkerchief as the ghost of deceased Italian charlatan, Cagliostro. And in the early 1900s, Kellar’s successor Howard Thurston, presented the effect, as well. Harry Blackstone, Sr., however, Thurston’s chief rival, created this effect as a comical signature act which endures to this day. I made an early decision to include a version of the Blackstone Spirit Handkerchief act. Blackstone’s act had been carried on by his son, Harry Blackstone, Jr., and elements of it have been presented by many other contemporary stage performers such as Master Magician Lance Burton. These performances have all used a wooden box or incorporated a particular logistically difficult method created by Ralph Adams, but I had never seen it presented as it is described in the “alternate ideas” section of the Blackstone Spirit Handkerchief manuscript, in which the handkerchief pops out of a large corked glass bottle.50 It seemed a charming piece and, given the circumstances of my upcoming performance venue, would be a relatively easy one to operate. Meanwhile, those false legs I have already described finally arrived from Thailand, and as I’ve explained, quickly proved entirely unworkable. This threw a wrench in my show, since a major part of Act II was planned to revolve around the female assistant, incorrectly hypnotized by the apprentice, causing her to go limp like a rag doll. Without the levitation, we first needed a motivation to enchant the assistant because I had envisioned in the Act II scene, that the male assistant would be able to hypnotize the female, but be unable to make her levitate. I was hoping to incorporate elements from the famous drunk bride scene of Buster Keaton, in a film titled, Spite Marriage. (By the way, Keaton actually used the drunk bride number as his live act when he appeared with the now defunct Cirque Medrano in Paris.) 50 Blackstone, Harry. The Spirit Handkerchief. 78 With the levitation out, I searched for an idea that would still allow me to hypnotize the female assistant, when I remembered the spirit cabinet effect. This new piece, then, came together quickly, as in an earlier phase of my career/life I was obsessed with Houdini, and, even, at one time promoted myself and performed solely as an escape artist. I was well-versed with the various “spirit ties” needed to perform this effect. In combining our particular rope ties with the venerable spirit cabinet presentation, I combined two ideas which, to my knowledge, have not been combined before. A small improvement, but another improvement nonetheless. Traditionally, the spirit cabinet act depends on a great deal of patter on the part of the presenter. A problem I would have to deal with later was, how to present the spirit cabinet effect silently? Buster Keaton, “Spite Marriage.” 1929 79 The Rose to Silk and the Lamp Chimney Vanish "Magic is designed to fool the brain, not the eyes." John Mulholland The final two effects which were included in Act I of my show were the Flower to Silk and the Lamp Chimney Vanish, respectively. I don’t know the exact origin of the flower to silk effect, but the earliest reference to it I have found is in an act of Channing Pollock in the 1950s. The Pollock version of the flower effect is still manufactured and sold today but for my taste, is not a reliable method. The effect is: a carnation boutonniere is removed from the magician’s lapel, and in the process transforms into a silk handkerchief. This is not so much a magic effect as a visual bit of business that is pretty to watch. The problem with the Pollock method is that the silk is prone to snag on the fine wires of the gimmick, which hold the rolled silk in the form of a carnation. Additionally, once the silk is removed, the wires (known colloquially in magic as a spider gimmick) remain on the lapel. That fragile gimmick then would interfere later in my act, since a lot remained in store for my jacket. Therefore, I invented a new system for the flower to silk effect using pieces from artificial roses from the local Euro (not Dollar, of course) stores. This new gimmick looked reasonably like a rose, whereas the old method only loosely resembled a carnation. Additionally, the new gimmick could be removed intact from the buttonhole; the petals plucked from the stem, and the stem discarded on the assistant’s tray —all before transforming the petals of the rose into a silk square. Combined with my actor/magician flourishes I planned to add, I believe this is a significant improvement on this old bit of business. 80 I would then place the piece of silk in a glass (in the old days the glass chimneys from oil lamps were used) and vanish it in an instant. The instantaneous vanish of a silk from a lamp chimney was done first, it seems, by extraordinary magician, Max Malini, around the turn of the 20 th century. The method was later updated and improved by Al Baker in the early 1900s, and re-popularized by John Carney in the late 1990s. I added nothing new to this effect other than to surround it with my grand magician physical bluster, but due to technical challenges I was facing, I took the advice of John Carney, in his Book of Secrets to experiment with making the vanish happen on the offbeat, rather than at the instant when audience’s attention was focused on the glass. In his book, Carney references an earlier bit of exceptional magic, card cheating – and acting advice from a mysterious writer who used the pseudonym S.W. Erdnase. Erdnase’s notorious 1902 treatise on card cheating, The Expert at the Card Table, states, “the resourceful professional failing to improve the method changes the moment [emphasis mine]; and by this expedient overcomes the principal obstacle in the way of accomplishing the action unobserved.” 51 The book remains in publication to this day and is considered essential reading for any card magician while the true identity of the author – in spite of new revelations remains a mystery.52 But, back to the silk-in-the-glass effect. After settling on the offbeat for the presentation, I also added a bit of theatrics in the form of the comic transition after the vanish of the silk. In the glass that remains, the female assistant pours me a shot of whiskey. I toast the audience, and we all freeze creating the first of our several “postcard poses.” Then, as she turns to walk off-stage with the bottle of alcohol on a tray, I had my assistant sneak a swig from that bottle. 51 Erdanse, S.W. The Expert at the Card Table. It now seems likely he was, in fact, Wilbur Edgerton Sanders, a writer of mining text books, whose name, W.E. Sanders, forms an anagram of S.W. Erdnase. 52 81 Wilbur Edgerton Sanders The Clowns “A conjuror is nothing if he only amuses and fails to inspire wonder.” Thomas Frost My overarching idea, as I have already alluded, was to follow the arc of The Cookie in the Shoe clown scene. Act I would be presented as a well-polished magic act. Act II was to consist of the comic deconstruction of the first act. When the apprentice decides to don the magician’s tailcoat, two giant bouquets of flowers burst forth (my Marshall’s bouquets). Because the coat went through a lot in Act I, we were not able to have the flowers preset in the coat. One solution would have been a duplicate tailcoat, but time and budget suggested a different solution. The apprentice had the flowers concealed within his overalls during the entirety of Act I. Thanks to his balletic posture, the long flowers caused a minimum of disturbance. 82 Next, after the flowers’ appearance impresses the female, the male apprentice is goaded by the female assistant into opening up the Conjurer’s spell book. Flames burst forth. This was a novel three person application of the standard fire book trick. By using the book normally two times in Act I, I was able to establish a pattern before breaking it on the third use. This method is, of course, a staple of comedy known as a triple. One additional reason for the fire book was that it allowed us to surprise the audience, and to heighten the theatricality of the piece, by also blacking out the lights when the book was opened so that only the assistant’s terrified face could be seen hovering above the flames. When the book was closed and the flames extinguished, the theater lights returned to normal. Next, the female assistant prods the jacket-wearing apprentice into winding up the conjurer’s music box, which had served previously as the musical accompaniment in Act I. Although, the apprentice winds up the music box exactly as the conjurer had; instead of plinking out Swan Lake, the music box now seems to belts out a full orchestral version of Paul Dukas’ symphonic poem, L'Apprenti Sorcier, which continues through all of Act II and into Act III until order is finally restored by the conjurer. This small music box effect actually required me to specially construct a music box with one real mechanism and add a second dummy mechanism on which the tines had been removed. In this way the audience would seem to hear, both the conjurer and the apprentice wind up the music box, but with vastly different results. Since one of my overarching objectives was to dodge the cliché of the inept magician, I looked for comedy which revolved around the magic working too well or in unexpected ways. In magic, this type of presentation is known as perverse magic, of which Cardini’s act was a perfect example. 83 Through this, we were able to discover comic moments which still maintained the illusion of magic working unexpectedly, rather than tricks simply going wrong. One example in my ensemble act takes place when the fishbowl is conjured. The grand magician is so powerful that a rogue fish is apparently also conjured into the mouth of the assistant. The apprentice pulls the wiggling (fake) fish from his mouth, tosses it into the fishbowl, and darts off. Here, we had another great opportunity for acting and the audience certainly responded. But in retrospect, I feel that it would have been better to have three fish come out of the apprentice’s mouth, one after another; rather than only one. Three fish could have been produced from his mouth using sleight of hand, rather than simply placing three fish in his mouth. (This is similar to the very old human hen trick in which countless eggs are removed from the performer’s mouth, one at a time.) On the other hand, he could just have started with three fish in his mouth. Either way, three fish would have more successfully attracted the focus of the audience. As it was, I felt that the audience’s attention was a bit divided between the apprentice’s fish problem and the conjurer’s reaction to having just conjured a large fishbowl from the netherworld. A second example of unexpected magic was to be found in the plant growth sequence. As the drops of water (from the fishbowl) are poured on the flower seeds, some water accidentally is flicked on the face and fez of the apprentice. After the flowers are revealed to have grown, a lone flower suddenly sprouts out of the top of the apprentice’s fez. The apprentice physically and comically reacts to the feeling of the flower “sprouting” out of his head which adds a great theatric element to this magic effect. 84 The blooming fez was an original concept and effect that I created for this piece. It originally came into being as the other two actors and I considered a growing hair trick, which would have been a difficult feat, indeed. Then we brainstormed a growing moustache, and finally, I came up with the concept of a blooming fez. I am a fan of fezzes to begin with, and I was able to adapt the principal behind an age old magic trick, the rising pencil in the bottle – but I substituted a stemmed flower for the pencil and a fez for the bottle that is used in that classic old trick. I remained true to my “successful magic” motif during Act I, because although some unintended happenings were occurring (the assistant stealing a drink, the fish in the apprentice’s mouth, the flower from the fez), they were not mistakes per se and throughout it all, the conjurer was never allowed to see or notice that anything was transpiring less than perfectly. Paul Dukas 85 Absurdity “Our task is amazement, not amusement. Always amazement first.” René Levand, Mysteries of my Life Early in the process, I knew that I was going to have to be on guard against nostalgia. Given my art deco aesthetic I had decided upon for the piece, and the golden age era of magic I was mostly recreating, I wanted to steer clear of creating merely a period piece. I wanted the piece to be aggressively modern, as well as aggressively classical. I wanted to use a retro aesthetic as a point of departure, but I also wanted to take the retro ideas in a direction they had not gone before. In fact, I discovered that the word retro actually comes from the retrograde rocket, so called because it moves forward by pushing backward. I wanted this act to have the same quality. I wanted to use the past to push forward into new territory. In other words, I did not want to take refuge in the past, but to draw from it, according to its strongest attributes. This decision was manifest throughout the act, beginning even with the preshow music. In order not to lull the audience into a false sense of 1920s security, the audience entered to Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit, which was followed by the jazz standard Stardust, by Hoagy Carmichael. This may very well be the only time in history in which these two songs have been played back to back. I also made a rather aggressive decision to perform most of Acts I and III with only the tinkling music box for accompaniment. This flies in the face of conventional wisdom which states that an act is either done with patter or performed silently to recorded or live music. I have toyed with this idea since the first incarnation of a comedy trapeze act I created and performed nearly a decade ago, in which the music of the act came from a small cassette tape player that I carried on stage with me. 86 This decision to work, at times, with neither speech nor canned music, did present several challenges. At one point in the show, the conjurer must spend a minute tying up the female assistant, before placing her in a hypnotic trance. This moment felt treacherously long, and at one point I toyed with using canned music during it. Instead, we decided to play a theatrical game of passing the focus, in order to help make the moment more engaging for the audience. The conjurer began by placing a finger to his lips as if to quiet the audience. As soon as the tying of the female assistant began, the male apprentice entered and tested the bell and rattled the pie tins as he set the props for the spirit cabinet. Once more the conjurer placed his finger to his lips demanding silence. By adding this shushing sequence, it became clear to the audience that our silence was a conscious choice, not an awkward problem. As she was being trussed, the female assistant’s eyes were drawn toward the tying of the knots. When the conjurer looked up at her, she immediately looked at the audience and smiled (no doubt as her character had been instructed to do.) The conjurer glared out at the audience as if to regain control after this slight divergence from the normal routine, before returning his attention to the knots. Her attention gradually took an interest in the knots again, and we repeated this cycle for each knot that was tied. In this way we created an amusing little comedy theater number out of what might have been a boring and awkward moment of simply tying knots. Also, I included a fair amount of absurd humor, such as our constant old fashioned commercial product placements and freezes or “postcard poses” I have already referred to, in which a bell chimed as we froze in place for a few seconds. Our feeding of the obviously fake fish was also odd, to be sure. Even had the fish been real, it would have been absurd to feed them. Magicians have been producing fish for centuries; but they don’t feed them on stage! 87 It was also suggested to me at one point in the process that we think of the transitions between the tricks as the theatrical pieces; and the tricks themselves, as transitions. This is quite an interesting reversal of conventional magic, and quite effectively addresses the “and now for my next trick” problem, which has been plaguing magic since its very beginning, I imagine. Eugene Burger The Language Question and the Magician in Trouble “Entertainment is broader than amusement. Shakespeare’s Comedy of Errors is amusing; his Hamlet is not. Nevertheless, the fact that Hamlet is far more popular than the Comedy of Errors proves that it is also far more entertaining.” Henning Nelms, Magic and Showmanship In Magic and Showmanship, by Henning Nelms, the author explains that a sandwich seemingly conjured randomly and for no reason will have much less impact on an audience than the same object 88 conjured after the magician’s friend loudly complains of being hungry.53 Surely, the sandwich theory is one of the strangest titles given in magic theory, but the theory underlying the silly illustration points to the importance of giving effects context – not simply providing an effect in and of itself. As long as magic has existed in print, there have been examples of the magician in trouble plot. These plots are found when it appears to the audience that something has gone wrong with a trick and the magician is forced to use “real magic” to resolve the problem. These plots are similar but not the same as sucker tricks in which the audience is led to believe that they have figured out the solution to a trick, only to have the tables turned in a final revelation. In general, I don’t advocate sucker tricks. In fact, I still have painful memories of performing this type of trick in my show when I was very young. The magician in trouble plot, however, remains a staple of great magic. Consider this wonderful example which was frequently performed by “The Professor” as Dai Vernon was better known as, in his later years. In this effect, known as Matching the Cards, a spectator chooses a card but does not look at it. The magician claims he will find the other three mates of the selection. By cutting the pack and inserting a table knife into various parts of the pack, the magician finds three kings. The spectator is told to turn over his selection. Surprisingly, it is not a king, but an ace. When Vernon performed this as an older gentlemen, it was at this point that he would start mumbling a little about his age and arthritis and so forth—and it would genuinely appear as though he had made a mistake. Vernon would say that he would have to fix it with magic, and wave a knife or a stick over the cards as a wand. Spectators completely bought into his ruse and were now maybe even a little concerned for the aging magician. Of course, Vernon would next cause 53 Nelms, Henning. Magic and Showmanship: A Handbook for Conjurers 89 those apparently mistaken three kings, pulled from the deck just seconds ago, to change into three aces, making his prediction of matching the cards come true after all. I applied a similar contextual (or sandwich) philosophy to the construction of Act III. If Act I was a well-executed magic act, and Act II a comic deconstruction of the first act, then Act III needed to somehow raise the stakes. Therefore, I established a magician in trouble scenario. In Act II, the assistants attempted to recreate the conjurer’s perfectly executed shoe trick and the male apprentice appeared to dump a large amount of cake batter (glop) into an audience member’s borrowed shoe. There could be no doubt in the minds of the audience that the shoe really had been destroyed. When, in Act III, the conjurer returns to the stage and resolves the chaos of the moment, he still was left with that shoe, borrowed from his audience and apparently ruined through the carelessness of the apprentice. This appeared to be a problem from which the conjurer would not be able to escape. However, repeating his conjuring sequence from Act I, he manages to perfectly restore the shoe, pouring out gold-covered chocolate, instead of the sugar, milk and eggs seemed to have been poured in by the apprentice. I decided very early on that I wanted the entire piece to function without speaking in order to maximize the physical and universal aspects of storytelling. As yet another example of absurdist humor, I decided the conjurer would speak only one word, and it would be a random word of no real significance or consequence. The word I chose was “shoe.” As I have mentioned throughout, the non-speaking nature of this silent comedy magic act allowed us to more greatly explore the use of our use of the space and our bodies, gestures and facial expressions. But, as we were debuting this in Italy, the lack of language would also heighten the commercial potential of the act to play successfully in multi-lingual Europe. 90 However, there came a point in Act I when I determined I could not communicate the moment effectively without voice and, I was forced, out of necessity, to integrate the voice. The effect that forced this was the spirit cabinet since its plot must incorporate an entranced medium restrained in a cabinet who is still somehow able to summon spirits which reveal their presence by throwing pie tins, ringing bells, and dressing the medium in a jacket all while her body appears to remain firmly tied. In presenting this effect silently, I worried that the audience might misunderstand the plot, thinking that the effect was about the assistant escaping secretly from the ropes. This, of course, is exactly what I did NOT want the audience thinking about. To correct this, I included a written description of the spirit cabinet in the program brochure I wrote to be distributed before the show. I also decided to use my voice. So, I chose to have the grand conjurer open his incantation book, which had already been established as such during the dancing handkerchief effect which opened the show, and begins speaking a mysterious incantation in Italian, closing with the incantation of the 19 th century Italian Conjurer Bartolomeo Bosco, “spiriti miei infernali obidite.”54 I believed this dramatic approach, while not coming right out and explaining the intentions for the effect in English, still made it clear that the conjurer was attempting to conjure spirits, or in some way influence things to take place magically, shifting focus from the trussed assistant. Incidentally, for the incantation, I twisted an Italian children’s song to suit our needs. The famous magic word of Danish born illusionist Dante, “Sim Sala Bim” is a nonsense word from a Danish children’s song, so I followed his lead. Our incantation was, “Spiriti di la luna gialla, cade inferno, e reste a galla. Avanti, parlati, i fantasmagori, noi siamo dentro, voi siete fuori;” or, “spirits of the light 54 Robert-Houdin, Jean Eugene. The Secrets of Prestidigitation and Magic. 91 of the yellow moon, fall from hell and stay and float. Forward, speak, ghosts, we are inside, you are outside.” I adapted that from an Italian children’s poem, La Luna, which goes: “La luna è una ruota gialla, cade in mare e resta a galla, gettano le reti i pescatori, noi siamo dentro e tu sei fuori;” or, “the moon's a yellow wheel. It falls into the sea and remains afloat. The fishermen cast their nets. We're in and you're out.” 92 Character Development “Rabbit-in-the-hat tie clips or cuff links are not to be worn. The 'M' ring should also be similarly eschewed. I cannot bring myself to comment upon ties with patterns portraying playing cards or bunnies. Certainly it is not necessary to caution the true cardman against false moustaches or capes.” David Bendix Character development, of course, formed a very large part of my work from the earliest stages. It also constituted the bulk of my work at the end. I was drawing from classic clowning, yet even within classic clowning there exists a number of different types of clown trios: Ringmaster, White Clown, Auguste White Clown, Contra-Auguste, Auguste White Clown, Auguste, 2nd Auguste Further, in Italy’s Commedia dell’Arte, from which classic clowning may be said to be descended, other potentially useful trios exist. For example: Il Dottore, Colombina (1st Servant), Arlecchino (2nd Servant) Capitano, Brighella (1st Servant), Pulcinella (2nd Servant) So, it was a real effort to make sense of my clown trio in terms of the existing trios and many challenges were presented. Should the conjurer play the function of White Clown or Ringmaster? Should he play along the lines of a Capitano or a Dottore? And what should be the relationship between the apprentice and the assistant? Should they play lovers, such as Arlecchino and Colombina? Or should the relationship be antagonistic such as could be found between Brighella and Pulcinella, or between the Auguste and the Contra-Auguste? Or, finally, should they behave more like siblings, such as is the case between a 1st and 2nd Auguste? 93 Of course, no particular existing archetype fully provided the answers, so I looked to another relationship which happens to exist in the field of magic. In many magic posters, beginning with a poster of Harry Kellar in 1894, magicians are shown consorting with small imps or demons. I decided that the two assistants, dressed in red, would essentially represent the two imps of the conjurer. This would justify their mischievous behavior behind his back. This would also eliminate any potential love triangles among the group, which were under consideration during the beginning of the process. Then, combining the notion of the imps with the inspiration from the great clown trio, I Fratellini (the Little Brothers) I named our troupe, I Diavoletti (the Little Devils). The general characters settled on were a conniving 1st servant who appears innocent on the surface but is mischievous beneath, and a dumber 2nd servant who is manipulated by the 1st servant into carrying out her mischievous desires. The 1st servant, the female assistant, was neither malicious, nor evil, but took pains to try and keep her fingerprints off of the chaos. Rather than touch the conjurer’s equipment, she preferred to use her instrument (the apprentice) to do her mischievous dirty work for her. This allowed her to righteously maintain her innocence until the end. The 2nd servant, the apprentice, was a classic Auguste. He was easily tempted by greed and easily manipulated by the assistant. I dressed him in a red bell hop style uniform and custom made him a fez so that he ultimately resembled a dancing monkey which might accompany a street organ player on a corner. However, I decided to play against that stereotype of low comedy and have the apprentice move in a very balletic manner, resembling physically, a swan, more than a monkey. This may seem a strange choice, but it is important to remember that in the Commedia dell’Arte, Arlecchino has shared characteristics of a cat as well as a monkey, and a demon as well as a 94 bumpkin. Indeed, in the French and British pantomimes of the 18 th and 19th centuries, the Harlequin character was very balletic, indeed. This decision played into the dance abilities of the actor who played the role, but accomplished something else as well. Clowns, traditionally, have been grotesque and exaggerated representations of the abnormal. In the past 50 years, though, this is beginning to change as the Auguste Lite (minimal make-up) character is rising to the surface. This, no doubt, runs hand in hand with the increasing fear and loathing of clowns among the public which, in turn, seems to develop concurrently with the creation of television and smaller and more intimate performance venues. These smaller venues reduce the need for the grotesque exaggerations which originated as a way to make the character read visually from great distances. With such exaggeration no longer necessary, many clowns are eschewing the heavy make-up of their forefathers. With this change, further explorations are possible. I believe, for instance, that in real life ugly people are not always stupid any more than attractive people are always smart. In fact, it seems logical that an inverse correlation could even exist. (But let’s not go into that here!) So, I find it very appealing for a clown character to be as graceful as a swan and as dumb as a rock. A bit like Gracie Allen, perhaps, of the staggeringly talented 20th century comedy duo Burns and Allen. With the sweet but sinister 1st servant, and the beautiful but dumb 2nd servant established, we were on our way to solid and interesting characters and relationships. Yet, I continued to struggle deeply over the character I would play – that of the conjurer. Did he relate more closely to Il Capitano or Il Dottore? To the White Clown or the Ringmaster? Once again I stepped away from clowning and the Commedia to search for an answer. 95 I took, as inspiration, the character of Godfather Drosselmeyer from E.T.A. Hoffman’s The Nutcracker and the Mouse King. This character is well known to audiences from his eye-patched appearances in Christmas productions of the ballet, The Nutcracker. At the beginning of my creation process, I examined the stage personas of Georges Méliès and Robert-Houdin in addition to Drosselmeyer. As a result of my contemplations, I wrote the following passage in my notebook: Drosselmeyer is a collector of arcane secrets, knowledge, and mechanical apparatus. He is also an inventor and builder of intricate clockwork devices. Therefore, he is not a sorcerer, per se, but more of a demonstrator. To those less informed, he may appear to have links to mysterious powers which may actually be accessed through knowledge. Further, Drosselmeyer is a master showman – adept at playing the role of one with strangely limited powers. From these observations, I determined that I wanted to depict the character in that light, conveying that he was a mysterious, yet benign, dark gentleman, who traveled the world collecting knowledge as well as apparatus, and took great joy in delighting adults and children alike with his conjuring demonstrations. Like Drosselmeyer, I considered, but did not ultimately choose, wearing an eye patch. (The eye patch limits the amount of facial expressions one can make, since broad expressions cause the eye patch to “ride up.”) Through intense and constant use of my eyes and eyebrows, I tried to convey the conjurer’s manic intensity, absolute devotion to his illusions, and his extreme desire to impress. The particular focus on the eyes and eyebrows stemmed from my admiration of the character of Gomez Addams as originated on TV by John Astin. Astin’s Gomez manages at once to be joyful and insane; deranged, but with an irrepressible sparkle in the eyes. Next, I found a suitable mannerism which allowed the conjurer to signal his grandiosity to the audience, as well as to cue applause or laughter. This gesture grew from watching a performance of 96 The great Dante which appeared in the Laurel and Hardy film, A Haunting We Will Go. Very little archival footage of Dante is available, and it took some concentrated effort to access this movie through the internet. I am glad I did, though. The Dante footage reveals that he had a particular, and peculiar, gesture which he mechanically employed at the start of his show as he greeted the audience with his trademark phrase, “Sim Sala Bim!” He also made this same broad gesture at the conclusion of each illusion. It was such a distinctive gesture that by the end of the film, even Laurel and Hardy were spoofing it. Dante raised both of his arms above his head, resembling the fifth position of a music box ballerina, and lowered his arms down describing a large circle, reminiscent of da Vinci’s The Vitruvian Man, passing through second position before, finally, letting his arms come to a rest at his sides. I do not know whether Dante also used this gesture in his professional stage shows, or whether it was dreamed up specifically for this film. I strongly suspect, however, that it was a regular part of his stage act. Dante was a pudgy little man, with no dance training, I would wager. His double-armed gesture seemed oddly disconnected from his lower half which was left standing normally. At any rate, it was captivating, if only for its charming oddness. I intended to recreate this Dante gesture, more or less, but it was impossible due to some technical constraints of my act that limited my mobility. During the first few moments of Act I, due to concealed apparatus, I could not fully extend both my arms at the same time. So, I developed a one handed hybrid version that worked quite well. In the beginning of Act III, when the conjurer returns to discover the chaos that has been introduced by his assistant and apprentice, he is holding a martini in one hand and a Daredevil comic book in the other; a cigar clenched in his teeth. His bowtie is loosened, and he is busily reading the comic book with no idea that the audience is still present. Presumably he is coming out to check on 97 the assistants and to see whether they have finished their task of cleaning up and resetting after the performance. I first have the conjurer slip and do a pratfall on the water spilled from the fishbowl, which was used in Act II to put out the fire that had begun on a table. Standing up, he looks toward the audience and his eyes widen as he realizes the audience did not leave after the performance. He tosses the comic book offstage and instinctively makes his signature grand gesture attempting to establish control. The conjurer then does a double-take as he notices the hypnotized female assistant upside down in the arms of the male apprentice, who has dared to don the conjurer’s tailcoat. Several people commented after the performance that the hand gesture reminded them of the character of Dr. Strangelove played by Peter Sellers, in Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. It was almost as if the conjurer’s hand had a mind of its own; so instinctive had that gesture become to the character. An interesting side note in the development of the conjurer’s character involved the selection of a name. I had previously considered a name such as Professor Devlin, Professor Jinksy or, perhaps, in honor of Dai Vernon, only The Professor. But an idea arose from a complication. The used band uniform jacket which I had purchased for the apprentice to wear as his bellboy uniform had a large “HS” embroidered on each sleeve. I considered removing the incongruent letters from each sleeve, but I thought it would be more interesting to try to incorporate it. I remembered a story I had heard about The Great Blackstone, whose real name was Harry Bouton, although he originally appeared under the name The Great Frederick. His first stage name 98 had come about because a different stage performer by the name of The Great Frederick had ordered a large number of playbills from a printer but had skipped town without collecting or paying for the materials. Bouton was given a good price for the playbills, and just like that, he became The Great Frederick. He probably would have remained that way had there not been a rise of antiGermanic sentiment which forced him to adopt a new surname. So for me, in the case of the “HS” band uniforms, those seemingly at first, unlikely letters, led me to a name which ended up even paying homage to Harry Blackstone, who had so influenced my new ensemble silent comedy magic piece. I decided that the “HS” would stand for: Professor Herby Silverstone. Finally, I added a moustache to my character’s face. Although, Jaques Lecoq has described the clown’s red nose as the smallest theatrical mask, I believe that smaller theatrical masks exist, such as the eye patch, the moustache, and even smaller, the beauty mark. Still engaged in the struggle of whether my character was more closely related to the White Clown or Ringmaster, I decided to wear a false moustache, to establish myself clearly as a member of the clown trio and not a character apart, such as a Ringmaster would be. Many clowns have worn false moustaches to great effect, Charlie Chaplin and Groucho Marx to name only two, and the pencil moustache I ultimately chose in many ways is synonymous with magicians (Mandrake) and swashbucklers (Errol Flynn) of the golden-age of stage magic and cinema. With the pencil moustache in place, my character was complete. Now, if I only had a cape… 99 John Astin as Gomez Addams Conclusion “[Fitzkee's Showmanship for Magicians] was more important to me than The Catcher In The Rye.” Steve Martin, Born Standing Up In the months that have passed since writing the first draft of this thesis, I staged a full 80 minute stage show which greatly expanded upon the central character of the previously described piece. Through that work I truly came to appreciate and embrace a particular quote by Henning Nelms in his generally underappreciated 1969 text, Magic and Showmanship: A Handbook for Conjurers. Nelms writes: “The techniques which enable an actor to persuade his audience that he is Hamlet or Falstaff are equally useful to a conjurer who wants to persuade his audience that he can take a rabbit out of an empty hat.”55 It is logical that many successful magicians have studied acting and theater, but it is less known that many famous actors and television personalities have studied magic. Orson Welles, Johnny 55 Nelms, Henning. Magic and Showmanship: A Handbook for Conjurers 100 Carson, Dick Cavett, Steve Martin, Harry Anderson, Ricky Jay, Ben Stiller, Neil Patrick Harris, and Jason Alexander are all examples which spring to mind of performers who, while competent magicians, are more recognized for the work they have done as actors. The father of modern magic, Jean Eugene Robert-Houdin, summed it up when he advocated that the best magician is the one who best knows how to play the role of a magician. History shows us that he was right: merging acting with magic provides synergistic results. Many of the world’s greatest magicians were successful because they were also skilled as physical actors. Conversely, magic is a very useful instructional tool for actors, insomuch as, like acting, it requires a high level of artificial naturalness and concealed technique. I have been a magician since I was an eight-year-old and am now in pursuit of a Master of Fine Arts degree as an actor in physical theater, at the core of it all, I am an artist who is constantly searching. As a magician, I search to conceal and as an physical theater actor, I search to entertain by liberal use of my body and voice. As an artist, I am a person who is constantly seeking to improve both. As I continue on my journey of combining theater contexts to magic, I look forward to exploring these relationships more for myself and for others. As actor, magician… and artist. 101 Appendix Photos from The Conjurer’s Assistants and the Waters of Shangri-La or Shoe. The following photos were taken from a live performance at the Accademia dell’Arte, Arezzo, Tuscany, April 29th, 2013. Special thanks to Francesco Piatelli and Cesare Baccheschi. 102 Above Left: The conjurer, his fish, and his assistants. Above Right: A quick advertisement for Johnson’s Baby Powder. Above Left: Baking candy in a borrowed shoe. Above Right: The assistant dons the conjurer’s tailcoat and finds flowers. 103 Above Left: The conjurer returns to the stage and discovers the audience. Above Right: The assistant is slapped dizzy. The humbled assistant is warned, and all returns to normal. 104 Works Cited Artaud, Antonin. The Theater and Its Double. Grove Press, Inc., 1958. 161. Print. Barth, S. Der Zauberlehrling. Circa 1822. Illustration. Blackstone, Harry. The Spirit Handkerchief. St. Pierre Enterprises, Magic Co, Inc; N.d. Braue, Frederick, and Jean Hugard. The Royal Road to Card Magic. Dover Press, 1973. 302. Print. Burger, Eugene. Mastering the Art of Magic. Kaufman and Company, 2000. 228. Print. Burger, Eugene, and Robert E. Neale. Magic and Meaning. Seattle: Hermetic Press, 1995. 189. Print. “Cake Baked in a Hat.” Magicpedia. N.d. Website. 11 Aug. 2013. Callery, Dymphna. Through the Body: A Practical Guide to Physical Theater. Routledge, 2001. 243. Print. Carnegie, Dean. “Nate Leipzig – A Real Magician.” The Magic Detective. 30 Sept. 2012. Weblog entry. 27 Aug. 2013. Caveny, Mike. Wise Guy: Harry Anderson from the Street to the Screen. Magical Publications, 1993. 168. Print. Devant, David, and Maskelyne, John Nevil. Our Magic. London: E.P. Dutton & Company, 1912. 487. Print. Da Vinci, Leonardo. The Vitruvian Man. Circa 1490. Pen and ink on paper. Gallerie dell’Accademia, Venice. Web. Galleria Accademia. 4 Aug. 2013. 105 Dukas, Paul. “L'Apprenti Sorcier: Scherzo after a ballad by Goethe.” 1896. Symphonic Poem. Erdanse, S.W. The Expert at the Card Table. First edition 1902. 130. Print. Fitzkee, Dariel. Showmanship for Magicians. Lee Jacobs, 1943. 187. Print. Frosty the Snowman. Prod. Jules Bass and Arthur Rankin Jr. Rankin-Bass. CBS. 7 Dec. 1969. Television. Giobbi, Roberto. “The Genii Session.” Genii Magazine. 1 May 2010. 34. Print. Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von. Der Zauberlehrling. 1797. Translation by Brigitte Dubiel. Ballad. Greenspan, Sam. “11 Most Profound Quotes by GOB on Arrested Development.” 11 Points. 7 June 2010. Weblog entry. 2 Aug. 2013. Haley, Louic C. The Dramatic Art of Magic: The Actor Magician. Hamley's Magical Saloons, 1910. 81. Print. Gylleck, Elmer. The Amazing Dr. Clutterhouse. Magic Inc., 1967. 42. Print. Harding, Lance. “ A Modern Day Vitruvian Man.” About Sacred Geometry. N.d. Weblog entry. 2 Aug. 2013. Jay, Joshua. Magic in Mind. Vanishing Inc., 2013. 555. Print. Karr, Todd, and Levent. Roy Benson by Starlight. Miracle Factory, 2006. 800. Print. Kettlekamp, Larry. Spooky Magic. Scholastic Book Service, 1958. 64. Print. Laban, Rudolph von. Effort. Macdonald & Evans, 1967. 88. Print. 106 Lecoq, Jacques. The Moving Body. London: Methuen Drama, A&C Black Publishers Ltd., 2000. 186. Print. Levand, Rene. Mysteries of my Life. Kaufman and Company, 1998. 200. Print. Marshall, Alexander. Beating a Dead Horse: The Life and Times of Jay Marshall. Junto Publishing, 2010. 540. Print. Martin, Steve. Born Standing Up: A Comic’s Life. Simon & Schuster Adult Publishing Group, 2007. 224. Print. Movie Crazy. Dir. Clyde Bruckman. Perf. Harold Lloyd. Paramount Pictures, 12 Aug. 1932. DVD. Nelms, Henning. Magic and Showmanship: A Handbook for Conjurers. Dover Publications, Inc., 1969. 322. Print. Palmer, Tom. The Tom Palmer Comedy Act. Magic Inc., 1969. 48. Print. Remy, Tristan. Clown Scenes. Ivan R. Dee, 1997. 254. Print. Reynolds, Charles. “In His Words.” Magic Magazine. 1 Feb 2008. Web. 2 Sept. 2013. Reynolds, Charles. Mystery School Anthology. Miracle Factory, 2003. 143-146. Print. Robert-Houdin, Jean Eugene. The Secrets of Prestidigitation and Magic. Circa 1868. Web book. N.d. 351. 14 Aug. 2013. Secret Services. “Quotations.” Arco N.d. Web. N. pag. 1 Sept. 2013. 107 Shallcross, Juliana. “Ten Things You Should NOT Do In Vegas.” Vegas Chatter. June 10, 2009. Weblog. 9 Aug. 2013. Sheppard, Richard. Modernism-Dada-Postmodernism. Northwestern University Press, 2000. 307. Print. Spite Marriage. Dir. Buster Keaton and Edward Sedgwick. Perf. Buster Keaton. MGM Studios. 6 April 1929. DVD. Steinmeyer, Jim. Conjuring Anthology. Hahne, 2006. 508-516. Print. --- . The Glorious Deception. New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, Avalon Publishing Group, Inc., 2005. 451. Print. ---. The Last Greatest Magician in the World. New York: Penguin Group, 2011. 377. Print. ---. Hiding the Elephant. Random House Books Ltd., 2003. 362. Print. Tamariz, Juan. The Five Points in Magic. Seattle: Hermetic Press, 2007. 81. Print. Tarbell, Harlan. Tarbell Course in Magic. Louis Tannen Inc., 1928. 1,646. Print. Thompson, Johnny. “Interview with Max Maven.” The Great Tomsoni & Co. N.d. Web. N. pag. 2 Aug. 2013. van der Put, John. Penguin Live Online Lecture. Penguin Magic. 18 June 2012. Web. 20 Aug. 2013. Vernon, Dai. Vintage Vernon Volumes 1-4. L&L Publishing, 2003. DVD. 108 Vita Since the age of eight, Scotty Walsh has entertained in cabarets and clubs, notable and notorious; in Theaters and tents, famous and infamous. He has performed across the US, Europe and Egypt – notably with the Egyptian National Circus; C’koi Ce Cirk in France; Circus Contraption in Seattle; and in Italy with his own companies, I Diavoletti and The Silverstones. Well-versed in American Vaudeville, Clown, and the Italian Commedia dell’Arte, Scotty studied with Antonio Fava at the Scuola Internazionale Dell’Attore Comico, at the Reale Società Ginnastica di Torino, and at Seattle’s School of Acrobatics and New Circus Arts. He trained in clown technique with Larry Pisoni of the Pickle Family Circus, and with Joe Fenner of Switzerland’s Scuola Teatro Dimitri. Additionally, Scotty has practiced mask-making and masked performance with Familie Flöz of Berlin. Scotty holds a Master of Public Administration degree from the American University of Paris. His professional teaching experience includes tenures as the Arts and Early Intervention Specialist at Port Discovery Children’s Museum in Baltimore, as a circus instructor at the Seattle School of Acrobatics and New Circus Arts, and as a guest instructor for Oklahoma University in Arezzo, the Denver School of the Arts, and Tuscany’s Accademia dell’Arte. This thesis was typed by the author. 109