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
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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
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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.
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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
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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.
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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
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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
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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.
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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!
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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
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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.
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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.”
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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?
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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
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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.
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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
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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
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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
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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…
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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
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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