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SHOWMANSHIP
For
MAGICIANS
CHAPTER TWELVE
How can you gain confidence? Only by knowing that you are "right" and ready. You can gain this knowledge through the fact that you have been over the act time after time, perfectly.
Rehearsal is repeated private performances in preparation for public performance.
In the beginning, it consists chiefly in planning. Work out all details-every one-connected with the finished presentation. Settle upon an idea. Determine the type of character you are going to play. Even if you work "straight" you are still playing a character, You.
Determine the ways in which you can unify it, tie it together. Then make a selection of tricks and settle upon their order. Be certain that all of the tricks you select are within your technical ability, easily within your ability. Discard all that will tax your skill in the slightest. Then make certain that the complete routine, from start to finish, will come within your time limit.
Be careful that your time limit isn't too long. This is regulated considerably by the type of act, the place where it is to be presented, the conditions of presentation and the type of audience. Make your act just a bit shorter than the length of time you are confident you can hold your audience's highest attention. This idea of doing just a bit too little, rather than a bit too much, is smart showmanship. If they haven't had enough they'll applaud for more. If they've had enough-or too much-they won't want more. ALWAYS LEAVE THEM WANTING MORE.
In a nightclub you will be restricted to five to seven minutes. But you might have to do two or three different turns a night. You can't do much more than three average tricks in this length of time. If the tricks are long, two might be your limit. Where you have a single trick, leading up to a smashing climax that takes time to establish, if it can be made superlatively interesting for that length of time, perhaps one trick will do. But remember a nightclub requires constant "lift" or movement and great speed. This is because the spectators are drinking, their attention is difficult to hold, and there are many other attractions and distractions.
Vaudeville will give you eight to twelve minutes at the most. The competition is terrific. Eliminate everything that doesn't help the act to build up. Eliminate everything that slows down the tempo. Don't stall and don't waste time.
Casual performances at clubs and smokers should not run more than fifteen to eighteen minutes. Occasionally, family type entertainments will allow you twenty minutes to a half-hour. But you are taking a chance on this length of time. Few performers have the personality and the material to continue to lift and move for this length of time.
And don't kid yourself about this time. Four minutes means two hundred and forty seconds; not a tick longer. Don't prepare an act that runs nine minutes and tell the master of ceremonies or the booker that it runs four. They'll catch you the first time and hate you to pieces. Maybe you know what happens to a care-fully routined act when a large hunk of it is chopped out of the middle, or off the end.
So you have your tricks selected to come within the desired time.
Now if the act is done to talk accompaniment, fit the lines or spoken material to the tricks. Or the tricks to the lines, whichever is better. And you'd better have to fit the tricks to the lines than vice versa. It makes a better act that way.
Some people can write their own material. Most people can't. Probably it is always best to have your material written for you by a professional. He sees the act from the audience standpoint and can view you in perspective. You can't. Also he probably has a large reference library available. Also, if he's a professional writer, he probably knows how to write acceptable material, not all of them do. See that you get the kind that does. Writing is like fiddle playing. If you've never played a fiddle, the chances are you can t play a fiddle. You won't know how. It's the same with a writer. He probably knows how.
Having had the spoken material coordinated to the tricks, the next thing to do is to put them together. Try them out. Rearrange and rewrite until everything seems right.
Then go to a music arranger and have your music score written. Insist that you get what you want.-Of course, this assumes that you know what you want. And are competent to know what is right for you.
Now put the whole thing together crudely and see how it goes. A first-class director would be of immeasurable help here. In fact, he'd be a big help from the very beginning. A director can put more lift and movement and zing and sales appeal and showmanship into an act in twenty minutes, if he is competent, than you'd be able to assemble in a lifetime, alone. One of the reasons for this is that he sees you as the spectator sees you. Also he has specialized, experienced technical knowledge which you can't possibly possess.
So if you can afford it, have the director or producer in from the start. It will be money well spent. If you can't afford a director, call in friends who have had some experience in show business or amateur theatricals. Call in several friends, it you have them. But for heaven's sake don't call in one of those amateur "conjurers" whose chief experience has been obtained at the Ladies' Aid Society or the Eastern Star. In fact, don't call in any amateur magician. If you must call in a magician, call on a professional who has had LOTS of experience. But, really, magicians should be left out. They have repeatedly demonstrated themselves to be poor judges of good entertainment. You see the trouble is that magicians like magic for itself. But the average spectator doesn't. He likes music and rhythm and comedians and sex appeal and such, the moron! But he's the guy that hires you. And he’s the guy that pays the bill. And if you want to work for him, you've got to have your act the way he wants it.
Remember. He doesn't know a gimmick from the mechanism for a Kellar levitation. He thinks a pass is something girls slap your face for and a pull has something to do with the police department.
If your act is silent, with musical accompaniment, just leave out that part that has to do with talk. Otherwise everything I've said goes. Except that what I have said about music goes DOUBLE. You'll have to be extremely discerning with this. There's a lot of weight on it.
So now you have the bare bones of the act together. Of course, a costume is important. Bring in someone competent to advise you on this.
The next step is to provide for every physical movement in the execution of the routine. Determine the location of all of the props you are going to use, where they will be before they are used and where they will be placed afterwards. When these details are finally settled ALWAYS locate them in the exact spot determined.
Don't overlook that the location of some of these props will be determined by the sort of movement necessary to secure or dispose of them. Your original plan may have to be altered somewhat because of this.
Now walk through the whole routine, including entrance and final bows and exit. Make certain that the props are properly disposed for the most efficient handling with the least physical strain.
Now try it for the first time with the talking material. Fit the talk to the tricks and the tricks to the talk so that both coordinate. If there are any dead spots or moments when the action doesn't seem to lift, cut them out. Eliminate all unnecessary movements.
Extreme economy of talk and movement is IMPERATIVE.
I think about here is the time to explain what I mean by "action" and "lift" and "movement." They all have a special meaning in the theater.
An act is like a set of stairs, always going forward and always rising. Going forward towards its ultimate punch and rising higher and higher in interest to the audience. Never should the stairs rise a few steps then descend a distance. Once you have gained a level, you must never drop below it. Neither may an act ascend a distance, then proceed on that level for a time. EVERY STEP MUST BE FORWARD AND UPWARD, SIMULTANEOUSLY.
Every word, every movement, every endeavor in an act must carry the interest higher and must approach closer to the climax. You cannot digress. You cannot pause. You cannot stop for by-play. You want your act to be a knockout. All right. Every pug in the fight game knows how to go after that knockout once it is in sight. Wade in and slug. Keep slugging, harder and harder and harder until the knockout comes. Your knockout is in sight the minute you step onto the stage. The preliminary sparring was done off-stage. The pug that stops to engage in a bit of fancy footwork or clever calisthenics gets his teeth kicked in. So keep on slugging. And I mean SLUG. That's why you can't waste any time in piffling trifles or fancy mitt-maneuvering. Stick to the act and its objective. Stick to it everlastingly, every minute. Allow NOTHING to distract you or the audience.
"Action" and "lift" and "movement," all mean this business of climbing the stairs. They mean going forward and upward. Anything that doesn't do that, anything that doesn't carry the act higher and closer to the punch should be eliminated. Eliminated ruthlessly, no matter how much you love the trick, no matter how well you can do it. No matter how pretty the apparatus. Throw it out-permanently.
Now you have the props properly set. You have the talk and the accompaniment fit to the tricks. The act has become a unit. Go over it with a fine-tooth comb. Find every way you can add to it-by accent, by interpretation, by gesture, by facial expression, by tone of voice, by movement, by posture. Make notes of all of these.
When this is done, when you are satisfied that you have explored the act from beginning to end to get the most out of it, you are ready to begin drilling on it. All that has gone before, all of the damnable detail exerted in putting the act together is called "routining" it.
When the routine is finished, you are ready to make it a finished routine.
A finished routine is possible only through tireless, unending, monotonous, incessant rehearsal. This grinding rehearsal is necessary to make every detail of the act habitual with you.
The rehearsal must be complete with props, talk, music and every movement. Do not rehearse parts of the act. Every rehearsal should proceed from beginning to end. Do the act completely, clear through-again and again. Go through it entirely three or four times your first session.
Don't practice individual tricks. Practice the whole act as a unit. The trick should lose its individual identity now.
If changes seem advisable, make them, but do not be too critical. The main thing is to get the act within yourself completely and in detail.
The second rehearsal should see you through the entire routine, without stops, three or four more times. Do this every day. Probably, going through the act three or four times daily, in two weeks you will have it. But after the first day or so, don't make any more changes. Go over it again and again, clear through, each time.
If you make a mistake, correct yourself the next time through. Make certain that you won't make the same mistake again. All mistakes must be eradicated in the earliest rehearsals. Finally, before you can be satisfied, before you can be ready for performance, you must go through the act repeatedly without mistakes or prompting, many times.
If you allow the mistakes to remain while you are rehearsing, instead of throwing them out completely AT ONCE, you will be drilling that mistake into your subconscious mind AS A PART OF THE FINISHED ACT. And you'll never get rid of it.
And when you can go through the act time after time without mistake. When you have done the act so much you are thoroughly sick of it. When you and the talk and the trick and the music ALWAYS arrive at the same place at the same time. Then you have a finished routine. Then, finally, YOU HAVE AN ACT.
You have nothing to fear now.
As you play the act, undoubtedly experience will teach you better ways of selling it. Undoubtedly you will find some material should be weeded out. Unquestionably you will find other material, music, talk, tricks, or business, which will make the act stronger.
Make the changes.
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