2007-09 Dennis' Deliberations

I was talking with Dan Stapleton and he relayed the story of Brett Daniels latest foray into magic. Apparently Daniels produced a magical version of a murder mystery story as a magic stage show and presented it near Milwaukee. There was very little of the old style Brett with his famous mega production illusions. This newer version of Brett had a lot of close-up magic with cameras and projection screens. The last we heard, he was looking for an investor and venue. Who knows? All we can do is wish him good luck. Apparently, audiences at his new show-concept had a tough time figuring out what they were watching and why they should be watching it. Magic and illusions are almost always a bad mix when presented with a complicated or deep plot. I can especially see the problems that Brett would have. I always thought that he came off as a hunk in search of a personality. This is the same problem that , in my opinion, Hans Klok has. Even though co-star Pamela Anderson has two especially fine points in her favor, I doubt that she and the 2 giant industrial fans blowing at Klok's long hair can save the show at Planet Hollywood in Las Vegas.

I believe Mark O'Brien had a problem with audience bewilderment in the 2006 Jacksonville summer production of his "Walking Through Fires" show-play. Mistakenly, the theater put up only the words"Magic Show" on the highway marquee and confused the issue even more in the minds of walk-in traffic. The show was really a play about Mark's two successive warehouse fires in Orlando in which he believes business competitors torched an uninsured half-million dollars worth of his illusions. His mixture of grand and brilliant illusion scenes with complicated dialog and two dimensional characters was a bit too artistic for the Jacksonville crowds.

One of the greatest illusionists of the 20th century,South American based, "Fu-Manchu" (David Bamberg) tried to mix spectacular illusions with a dramatic storyline and plot in a giant stage production in Mexico City . The show opened featured within it a series of dramatic storylines and a half-hour story/illusion segment called , "A Trip to the Moon" with an ingenious and giant magic robot. The show flopped badly and Bamberg went back to his classic illusion presentation never to try such a show again. J. Marberger Stuart, originator of The Dragon Award, was the co-producer of the 1969 Off-Broadway play, "Make Me Disappear", which featured a vanishing elephant. Though it paved the way for Henning's Broadway Magic Show, a few years later, was not profitable.

Magic illusions are fundamentally a "spectacle"...circus-type of awe. A storyline gets in the way. You can't emphasize both. You can do a story with illusions, such as Disney's stage version of "The Beauty and the Beast" or spectacular illusions with a thin theme such as Copperfield's "Escape from Alcatrez" but either the illusions of the story has to be the focus. You can't do a good job with both. This is one of the reasons I am down on many Gospel Illusionists. The Substitution Trunk used as an example of The Sacrificial Atonement is a bit of a stretch and over the head of everyone but a seminary systematic theologian. (I actually saw it done that way once!)

When all is said and done, the audiences leaves all magic illusion shows with the major question, "How'd he do that?"....Sure there are a lot of pretty things and glitz and nice looking assistants but the appeal is mystery and awe. It is possible, and I think desirable, to incorporate an up-lifting segment. Kevin Spencer always concludes his illusion show with the story about how he was almost killed in a truck wreck and struggled back to physical health because he had hope and a vision for a better future (with his conviction of God's help) for himself. Audiences like it and it makes them feel good.

I am going to give you a few suggestions for these "feel good" impressions but first you need to understand that any show, which I define as more than a couple of tricks, needs an emotional energy track. Paul Osborne goes into this in his book on creating an illusion show. English Lit majors in college study Gustav Freytag's "dramatic structure" line. You may have learned this in High School English: The exposition, the rising action, the climax, the falling action and the denouement.

How do you move along the timeline with an "opening", "middle" and "conclusion"? How do you keep people interested? Obviously in magic you need to pace the sequence of spectacles and give the audience time to relax and laugh and then pump them up again. Here is where the skill of routining comes into play. One approach is to figure out a scale of one to ten on the excitement a trick creates and then put together a routine starting with say an "7" and then a "5" and "4" and build up to a
"9" and "10". Use a piece of graph paper and draw the timeline and the numerical emotional intensity of each effect. Henning Nelms goes into great details on how to do this in his groundbreaking 1969 classic book, "Magic and Showmanship". It is in paperback from Dover Books and the best 10 bucks you could spend. Nelms also includes many lessons on how to walk, stand and speak. He borrows from the theater arts for skills and tools to make an entertaining magic stage performance and his book is also loaded with many original prop ideas.A great series of eleven articles appeared in Genii magazine . They began in October of 1988. Ray Pierce called the series, "Pansophical Production" and the series is one of the most complete instruction guides on how to put together a magic stage show I have seen.

I have been a theater professor at Valencia Community College for the past 20 years and my suggestions are to attend as many dramatic presentations as you can, comedies, serious contemporary drama and classics. Observe how the author moves you along emotionally. Also read plays. Read them with a metacognitive method.
In others words, have a goal and a purpose and a critically detached intellectual method of analysis of what you are reading. And then, observe ( never copy! )how other successful magicians routine their shows.

Now, let me get to some "feel good" impressions that I use. My conviction is that if I ask someone to watch me or pay to watch me, they deserve to take some spiritual or emotional or intellectual personal progress with them. I am not interested in merely presenting cheap thrills and mindless bubblegum for the eyes. Television can give you all of that stuff. Depending on the venue, I always include a thought provoking effect in my presentation. At the July Ring meeting I did Dan Harlan's "Gloves in colors" effect , with my own patter. It motivates people to understand how a group of people with common interests always have a place for others. I have a similar patter using the colored feather wreaths that I did about 4 years ago when I was the MC at the annual ring banquet

In children's shows I make references to how learning math and science are fun. I also have "Doodle Cards", ( I showed them at the August Ring Show) a series of drawings that promote critical thinking and imagination. My Egyptian Sand trick is an appeal to balance in your life between the body, the intellect and the emotional. (I also did this once at a ring banquet)

In some stage shows I will do the "Strait Jacket" with a presentation on how to get through tough times in your life. I almost always end my large illusion show, for family audiences , with a Patriotic scene producing the Statue of Liberty.

The idea is that when people leave the show they take something emotionally (a change of attitude) with them. Aristotle, in Poetics One, describes the "katharsis" in a drama. It is the "change of attitude" about the meaningful and eternal ideas, you took with you from the presentation. It is accomplished by a purging (katharsis) of the emotions "through pity and fear". Aristotle believed that art involved imitation (mimesis).
A tragedy, then, is the imitation of an action that is serious and also, as having magnitude, complete in itself; in language with pleasurable accessories, each kind brought in separately in the parts of the work; in a dramatic, not a narrative form; with incidents arousing pity and fear, wherewith to accomplish its catharsis of such emotions. (Poetics 1449b.24)

Aristotle distinguished six elements of a drama: Plot, Character, Diction, Thought, Spectacle and Melody.

I find it amazing that concepts written over 2,000 years ago can still give us great insight into how our magical arts work! Think about these things as you routine and sell yourself to an audience.

Finally, thank you for your many good words about the unusual routine I did with an audience volunteer with a coat hanger through the body.

The routine began as 'Corinda's Powers of Darkness' and the printed instructions were sold by Magic Incorporated (Chicago) for years. But that version used either metal macramé or wooden embroidery hoops.

Mike Caveney is "Mr. Coat Hangers" and is the one that adapted it to a coat hanger that is stretched apart.

The Caveney version of Powers of Darkness is pretty much the 3 basic moves that I used. But, I changed the patter and softened the mood of the routine. Caveney is a great entertainer but , in my opinion, sometimes gets too arrogant and smart with his audience volunteer helpers. I present the effect as a psychological demonstration of what it feels like to be fooled...and promise to make sure they will understand what I secretly did while their eyes were closed. In my show for lay people, I demonstrate it quickly again with the volunteer's eyes open so they can see what I did and that gets an equally big response from the volunteer and the audience. After each explanation to the volunteer I ask the audience to applaud her for being such a good sport. In the interest of time, and having a magician's audience, I did not do that at the ring show. I just want the audience to enjoy watching someone totally bewildered. (Isn't that the Post-Modern appeal of David Blaine and Criss Angel?)

One key to the demonstration is selecting an emotional and emotive volunteer. Rebecca was great.

The trick is home-made. I got the hangers a few years ago from ( I think I said in the routine) Bed, Bath and Beyond my Budget .
You can cut the one hanger with a strong pair of pliers and then you will need to epoxy the twist at the hanging loop end since it will be loose. I use a 5 minute , 2 part epoxy glue, available at Home Depot or Lowes. Then you should hit the glued area with some aluminum spray paint.

One final note: I almost always carry a Leatherman pocket tool ( small pliers) and have on a number of occasions borrowed " a few" coat hangers from the host at a house party using the excuse that I need " to pick a good one" . I then doctored up one and did the routine impromptu! It always is a crowd pleaser!

Dennis Phillips