Editorial

Let’s take a look at magic on television: Mark Wilson, Doug Henning, Paul Daniels, Harry Blackstone Jr, Siegfried & Roy, Lance Burton, The Secret Cabaret, The World’s Greatest Magic… the list goes on. All of these shows, though very different in style and personalities, presented magic in the same way – theatrically.

I know this seems like a very obvious statement as magic is, after all, a theatrical art, but in the last few years we have seen some performers begin to apply the old Henning Nelms adage:

"A typical trick has no meaning beyond the fact that it presents a puzzle and challenges the audience to find the solution. When we supply meaning, we eliminate the challenge, and the puzzle becomes secondary". - Henning Nelms

I realise that a lot of the performers listed above have applied meaning to their magic in various ways. Copperfield even tried applying ‘purpose’ when he used magic to make his escape from Alcatraz.

However, all of these shows were presented as theatre. Shows that we, as audience members, could safely watch and enjoy knowing that we were watching master magicians demonstrating amazing theatrical skill. We knew what we were watching was not real, it was fantasy, and it was very entertaining. We were not shocked when we saw someone sawn in half or impaled on a sword, we knew it was just an illusion and everything would be alright in the end.

When we saw Copperfield fly around the stage, a fulfilment of all our childhood dreams, it was magical, awe-inspiring and full of emotion. But we knew it was a trick.

When we saw Blaine rise an inch above the ground, it was something completely different. It truly freaked people out. How could that be a trick? It wasn’t on the stage, it was in the street. It could have been our street! Blaine had supplied meaning to an old effect in two ways: first, he gave it a new setting by taking magic off the stage and into the audience. Yes, people have done that before, close up magicians have long known how much more powerful magic can be in this setting. But when someone approaches us at a party or a restaurant and identifies himself as a magician, our pre-conceptions are aroused and we know he is going to use his theatrical skills to fool us. Blaine didn’t do this. He approached people as a weird, mystical guy with something strange to show them. At worst it was yet another demonstration of skill (cigarette through coin, invisible deck, twisting arm illusion…) at best it was a solution to a problem (turning a homeless guys coffee into a cup full of money, reaching through a stores glass window to retrieve a womans watch…)

Blaine understands what Henning Nelms was saying and, in fact, paraphrases him frequently saying: "If a magician does a trick for someone, that’s nice. But if someone says they’re hungry, and a magician produces a sandwich, that’s something different."

It certainly is “something different”. It takes magic out of the context of theatre and into the realm of reality. Imagine trying to do that with another art form:

Singing – Aside from the movie musical, anyone bursting into song in everyday life might cheer people up in a sad situation, or it might be seen as a sign of the onset of madness.

Dancing – A good dancer can certainly impress others by his or her moves, but once taken off the dance floor and into the streets, the moves may not be considered quite as impressive.

Juggling – Apart from that scene in ‘Spiderman’ where Peter Parker catches Mary-Jane and her tray of lunch in the cafeteria, and maybe while serving cocktails in a flashy bar, the ability to juggle may not be a huge help in real life.

Other than acting, which certainly can be a great help in your day to day dealings with other people, magic (if it were real) would be a tremendous asset to anybody. Look at the reactions T.H.E.M. gets from their audience when the magic is presented as real. We have the ability to shock, delight, amaze, and terrify our audiences – but when you put the magic back on stage those abilities are diluted somewhat.

David Blaine uses his magic to help a boy he just met overcome his fear of snakes by eating one. The guys from T.H.E.M use their magic to get into an exclusive nightclub by walking through a plate glass window. Derren Brown uses his magic to look into the minds of supermodels and discern the pick-up line that’s going to get results They have all added meaning to their magic by putting it into real life situations. You can almost hear the viewers at home saying “I wish I could do that”.

Now certainly those same viewers most likely said “I wish I could do that” when they saw Copperfield flying too, but he was on stage and a part of them knew that that stage had to be part of the trick. In the same way when a magician makes a girl appear from an empty box you’ll hear people say “I wish I had one of those boxes.” Their mind won’t even let them pretend it was magic, they know it was a trick box.

When Blaine floated, it was him, no boxes, stages, clothes, crates, or anything. The same with Derren Brown, T.H.E.M, and the new breed of ‘reality magicians’. They don’t just hide their secrets behind the drapes of the stage curtains… they hide the curtains as well. As a result, there’s only one place that could be the source of the magic – themselves.

Just to be clear, I’m not saying that this ‘reality magic’ is better than ‘theatrical magic’, just different. It certainly is more appropriate for TV than just filming a stage magic show, and I’m sure it has it’s share of critics who can’t stand it. It’s as though, in the magic world, we’ve been drinking Coke for years and now Pepsi’s come along.

How does this affect the everyday magician who doesn’t have their own TV show? It opens up a whole world of new possibilities. Sure, many audiences prefer to book an act that brings a lot of big, flashy props to fill the stage, and there’s a lot of good work out there for magicians who choose this path. But now, as ‘Weird’ Al Yankovic says “The world is your burrito”.

Imagine going into a room one hour before your show and setting it up, hiding gaffs and gimmicks all over the place:

Instead of a card frame - replace a framed photograph on the wall with a trick framed picture so that, at the right moment, the picture will vanish and the chosen card will appear inside the frame.

Instead of a rising wand – set up an electronic ITR in a vase of flowers so that with just a gesture you can cause a chosen flower to rise up out of their vase.

You can place gaffed coins around the house, gaffed books on their library shelves, gaffed sharpies in their drawers! To the audience it will appear that you can pick up anything, anywhere and do magic with it.

I realise many people have been doing this to some degree in the past, the gag where you rip the shirt from the ‘volunteer’ comes immediately to mind. But I look at these new ‘reality magic’ shows and I see the realisation of what Henning Nelms was talking about. Magic with meaning, context, and purpose.

Take a look at our traditional view of close up magic. There’s a party with people milling around and the magician appears in a tuxedo and ruffled shirt. He approaches people one by one saying: “Hi, I’m Joe Watson the magician. Would you like to see a trick.” Eventually someone says yes and he takes out a set of spongeballs and performs.

If you apply a more ‘real’ approach to the same situation. There’s a party with people milling about and the magician appears in a very fashionable, appropriate suit. He approaches the bar and buys a drink but only has a one dollar bill. He is aware of the moment when people are looking at him and he slowly folds the bill up and changes it into a hundred dollar bill. As he pays for his drink someone approaches him. “How did you do that?” “What? Oh, did you see that… I’m sorry, I didn’t think anyone was watching.” After a brief conversation, during which the first spectator has introduced him to several of his friends and described what you did in ever exaggerated detail, you finally consent to try something else. You borrow a bill from him and a pen from the passing waiter. After plunging the pen through the bill you return both items to their owners. More discussion follows and every five or ten minutes you try another experiment. Less magic is performed in an hour, but by careful preparation in placing certain props in certain places (like the waiter’s pocket), and by playing the role of a person who can do real magic as opposed to a ‘magician’, your magic will have much stronger impact and you will be creating a unique position for yourself in the entertainment industry. People will ask for you, not just ‘a magician’.

Unlike Uri Geller you’re not attempting to pass yourself off as a person with supernatural powers. You will freely admit to anyone that these things are just “tricks”. Not tricks you bought from a shop, but tricks you have learned how to do. It’s you just trying things and they seem to work for you. Don’t give the credit to a prop or a mystical force. That way the magic seems all that more real. So real, that the spectators will feel that, with practice, they might be able to change $1 into $100 too… and they can imagine how different their world might be if they could really do that. Your magic now means something to them.

For so long magic has been travelling down the road of theatre. It’s a good road, nothing wrong with it, but now there’s another. ‘Reality Magic Avenue’ is here to stay and, despite all of the David Blaine and Derren Brown clones, it’s a successful alternative worth studying. Already others are using what they’ve learned to carve new and unique pathways for themselves. Encourage them, reward them, join them.

- TIM ELLIS 2005