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SHOWMANSHIP
For
MAGICIANS
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Successful presentation of your trick routine or act is in direct proportion to the interest you can create in your spectators. There are two phases of interest that must be impressed upon the entertainer, the creation of interest and the retaining of interest.
Interest begins with catching the spectator's attention. There are two kinds of attention which apply to entertainment. They are voluntary and involuntary.
Involuntary attention is that we cannot resist, that which we give because we are sensitive to certain stimuli. Any sudden, unexpected loud noise is a good example-the blast of a revolver, the scream of a police or fire siren. A sudden difference in light conditions also illustrates the point. This might be a sudden darkness or a bright flash of light. This attention is passive. It is the result of external influence.
Voluntary attention is active attention. It is given as an act of free choice. When we give attention thus we THINK actively.
THAT WHICH CAUSES US TO PAY SUCH ATTENTION IS SOMETHING WHICH PROVOKES THOUGHT.
Thought provoked attention is INTEREST.
When something forces itself upon our involuntary attention it can only affect our sense organs ordinarily. But when we take interest our higher nervous centers are affected. "It starts into action our sympathetic imagination, our reflective foresight, and sometimes our self-control."
Thought is provoked by any situation when our instincts and habits fail to deliver us automatically.
The normal person's interest is captured usually by the things he has to deal with ordinarily in his everyday life. To an audience of bartenders there could be no point in going into a psychological discussion like this. There is no point of contact with his everyday experience. To an audience of magicians there would be no point in going into the details of the complex actions, reactions and mechanisms forming the foundation of these elemental psychological principles, important as they are.
In that form they do not coincide with the magicians' experience.
Yet, by using only that portion of psychology which applies directly to the everyday experience of the magician. I can hold your attention. You are interested because attention is import-ant to you, because it is within your common everyday experience, because it is a problem to you. AND YOU THINK.
There is the very fiber of interest and attention.
Literally, it means not to plan your material so that it is over the heads of your audiences. To hold their interest you must keep somewhat within their world, although a slight overlap into a wider area is not objectionable.
The classic plaint of the comedian, "My stuff is over their heads," is not an indictment of the audience, BUT OF THE ENTERTAINER. It is not a legitimate excuse for a poor performer. It is the proof of a poor performer. The obligation is not with the audience to pay attention to the performer. It is the duty of the performer to catch and hold their interest. He cannot do this if his material is too subtle, or outside of the realm of their interests. This state of affairs is a confession of failure.
An automobile mechanic will be interested in a trick done with an inner tube, a crescent wrench, an oil can or a piece of steel. He will be interested in a complication common to the problems he encounters in his normal life.
The normal woman will be interested in cloth, thread, silk, cooking utensils, canned food, vegetables and a long list of things and problems with which she comes in contact daily. The stenographer will be interested in objects and problems common to an office and her experiences in life.
A night club audience can understand and THINK ABOUT glasses, bottles, tablecloths, dishes, liquors, cigarettes. An audience of children has the world of play and school. A men's club will be interested in playing cards, business deals, money, taxes, neckties, men's handkerchiefs, cigars, cigarettes and so on.
The radio audience, the theater audience and all other audiences, each peculiar to its sphere of daily activity, will have by what specialized interests, outlined they collectively encounter as a group in their daily experiences.
To gain their thoughtful attention, and I do NOT mean profound thought, their interests, your material and its delivery must be kept within the common field representative of the specific audience you are entertaining.
TO GET INTEREST YOU USE THINGS WITHIN THE COMMON EXPERIENCE OF YOUR SPECTATORS, SITUATIONS FAMILIAR TO THEM, PROBLEMS THEY ENCOUNTER, LANGUAGE AS THEY ARE ACCUSTOMED TOHEARING IT, BECAUSE IT IS THE ONLY WAY TO LINK THEIR THOUGHT TO THEIR ATTENTION.
Your audiences generally will come from three classes of people: (1) Immature and uncultured spectators; (2) Mature and uncultured spectators; and (3) Mature and cultured spectators.
The first class encompasses more than half the total population of this country-infants, children and young people too inexperienced to he interested in many things that appeal to grown-ups. But this class does not alone include young people. Many adults fall within it. It is claimed the average intelligence is that of a fourteen-year old.
To the second class belong our more prosperous people-the better-educated farmers, skilled laborers, merchants, business men and, it is said, seventy-five percent of our doctors, lawyers and other professional men, These people have grown up and are accustomed to using their wits.
The third class is very small. These people are mentally more alert, more receptive and more analytical than most of us. Thus, as they grow older they accumulate an understanding of and an interest in a wide field.
It is obvious, of course, that the normal audience is largely of the first or second class.
So to gain interest you must gauge intelligently the class of audience you are to entertain. Bear in mind that while the second class furnishes your usual ADULT audience, the moment the members of an audience of this group become intoxicated they temporarily revert to the first. This explains why only the simplest and most direct tricks and methods of presentation will interest a group of people who are drinking, such as at certain types of smokers, night clubs, and hotels.
It is for this reason that I feel that the average magician's apparatus, as such, is not scientifically correct to gain the greatest interest. There is nothing in the past experience of a truck driver, for example, that would cause him to become deeply interested in a red box with a Chinese dragon painted on it , unless what you are to do with it is within his immediate experience.
Do something with it DIRECTLY, like destroy it or restore it, and it is within his thought field. Cause it to float and it will hold his interest. But when you put something within it and then show it empty, he is not nearly as impressed simply because the interior construction is outside his scope of experience. It may puzzle him. He may wonder at the intricacies of its construction, but you will get a poor grade of attention.
The entire matter might be rectified by making that box look like something with which he is thoroughly familiar, such as a lunch box, the packing box for an inner tube, an ordinary packing box of wood or cardboard such as he handles.
This matter of thought experience evidences itself in many interesting ways. The needle trick is an example. The average spectator is thoroughly familiar with needles. He owns a mouth of his own. When you swallow needles the consequences are well known to even the most limited intelligences. He has tried to thread needles. He realizes how difficult it is. He knows it is impossible within the mouth and is curious as to whether you can do it and how you can do it. Does it hold his interest? It can't help it.
The presentation of the doll house as outlined previously is an example of pointing an unfamiliar object, the doll house, to the average audience's experience. A miniature house such as that is NOT common. But a home is, So is a romantic couple and their problems. By making the miniature house a model of the home this romantic couple is to occupy, the entire matter is projected within the spectator's thought-zone. The "other woman" is not an uncommon situation, either.
An emotion is an inner disturbance caused by the interference of several conflicting impulses to act. It is automatic. If you can set up a sympathetic emotion on the part of the spectator, and I do not mean sorrow or fear or any of the elementary reactions, to a point where the spectator may begin to identify himself in the same situation, you are not only interesting him, you are making him a part of the act itself.
This explains why tricks like the needle trick, done under circumstances where you can CONVINCE the spectator, always sell heavily. It explains why that doll house routine met with such favorable reaction.
There are psychological reasons why the interest of a spectator may be retained only so long. He tires quickly. He tires more quickly when there is a single interest than where there are multiple stimuli. The usual magician's program concentrates upon one interest, puzzlement. If there are a variety of interests such as character, comedy, action, and others, which have been discussed at length previously, you can hold his interest longer.
But, even with a variety of interests, this average spectator becomes fatigued.
This length of attention-holding time is a relative matter, too. If the acts that have preceded you have been fast and short, the spectator will begin to tire, having been conditioned to this type of brevity and speed, when you exceed the preceding acts materially in time.
If you want to discover what holds the attention and interest of the average audience, go to the best school in the world, the BEST acts. Pay particular attention to the topics stressed by the TOP acts. I mean, the headline acts in the theater or on the radio or in the movies. They have reached the top, generally, because their attention and interest attraction has been SUPERLATIVE.
There is absolutely no advantage in patterning after a mediocre act. Mediocrity means nothing.
Pattern your own interest appeals upon the proven interest appeals in the better acts. That is surefire.
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