<-|Top|Showmanship For Magicians|Trick Brain|Magic By Misdirection|Mail|->
<-|!*!|C|I|1|2|3|4|5|6|7|8|9|10|11|12|13|14|15|16|17|18|19|20|21|22|23|24|25|->
SHOWMANSHIP
For
MAGICIANS
CHAPTER TWENTY
Heretofore, in our discussion of routine we have adhered to a general meaning of a particularized outline of detail for the performance of a single trick or effect. This, of course, means all of the detail that goes to make up the interpretation of a single number from a group that together will make up an entertainment unit.
There are many names for this group of units that constitute the program for a complete appearance. In vaudeville or nightclub parlance this program is called an act or a turn. In unit shows or revues it is called an act or a routine. Where the program makes up the entire entertainment, such as a full evening performance it is called a show. And where it constitutes the full stage entertainment in a motion picture theater it is called a unit.
For example: When the International Magicians was playing a full evening entertainment in a legitimate theater, it was a show. When it was cut down to 45 to 60 minutes and played in a motion picture theater, it was called a unit. The Pennies From Heaven number, our version of the miser's dream, was called a routine. Slyter's drunk act was an act or routine. John Mulholland's or Dr. Tarbell's lecture program entertainment is called a show.
Now we shall discuss putting together a number of these individually routined tricks, or entertainment units, into an act. I hesitate to call the individual numbers in a magician's program "tricks" because the word has come to connote the magical effect alone, without any reference to presentation. Perhaps it would be best here to refer to the units as interpretations.
With this in mind, then, we are to discuss the act, as a complete series of interpretations, making up an entire entertainment program. For our purpose, we are not going to limit the meaning to a short act. But we shall mean instead any program of interpretations of tricks, whether a short act of two or three numbers of a full evening's program.
In the beginning, however, our references shall be to the shorter routine as seen in vaudeville or nightclubs or in casual club or smoker dates.
Ample reference has been made in this work before about limiting the time, about making it lift, about building it up with a series of sub, punches until it culminates in one great climactic punch.
It might be well, here, to add a few more facts on lift. "Lift" is accomplished when each number following another contains more and more audience appeals or stronger emphasis on the same appeals. Or the succeeding number may contain even less appeals, IF THE STRENGTH OF THE FEWER APPEALS COMBINED EXCEEDS THAT OF THE PRECEDING INTERPRETATION.
Lift means an arrangement of interpretations in such a manner that audience interest and entertainment INCREASES in intensity steadily. The audience attraction must always INTENSIFY. It must never waver. It must never recede. It is best if the audience attraction is never allowed to stay on the same plane. Entertainment value, as emphasized before, must climb the golden stairs.
The increment of the lift, however, is steeper in an act than in the commonly accepted magic show. A full show, made up of a series of acts, all at this steep slant, impossible for a single principal to maintain, simply puts the one-man full-evening entertainment out of competition.
These days acts are not mere collections of numbers. Acts are ideas. The stronger the idea, which means also the stronger the unity, the stronger the act. Stress of the human qualities and stress of the audience appeals plus personality make up this idea. It is relatively unimportant whether you do repeated card fans, pour cocktails from a shaker, or do the passe bottle trick, AS LONG AS WHAT YOU DO IS CONSISTENT WITH THIS ACT IDEA.
The cocktail trick, or rather under its original title Any Drink Called For, was done years ago by David Devant. And Chris Charlton was imported from England during the prohibition rebellion to do the same trick for swank parties in Florida.
But Charles Hoffman made a specialty of variations of that trick alone and in a few years built it up from a first presentation at the P. C. A. M. convention at Hollywood in 1935, where it was a part of his magic routine, to his present act billing him as "The Highest Paid Bartender In the World." Joan Brandon, the blond magicienne of New York, also specializes in the cocktail trick with an elaborate set-up.
Many performers, including Frakson and Cardini, have made a feature of manipulative acts including cigarette and card productions. If I recall correctly Hoffman also used cigarette productions in his original act of which the cocktail trick was merely a part.
Giovanni, and later others, has featured a single trick. His specialty is expert pocket-picking.
Many acts have been strictly sight acts, such as Cardini's act, or Slyter's drunk act, or the single act originally done by Lucille Hughes. In Cardini's case, of course, the tricks used were cigarette, card and ball productions. Slyter's act featured his character as a drunk, but included were his own multiplying whiskey glasses, production and multiplication of beer glasses, the standing cane, the color-changing scarf, alarm clock production and other effects. Miss Hughes featured showmanship of a very capable order with emphasis on her own delicate beauty. The tricks she used included the egg bag, the bouncing egg, the sympathetic silks and the vanish of a canary which reappeared within a nest composed of a grapefruit, an orange and an egg.
On the other hand, many magicians have featured comedy. Russell Swann makes a specialty of this type of entertainment, as does Ballantine whose act is very original.
John Scarne has featured demonstrations of fast gambling methods, and has been very successful with it.
However, this list does not exhaust the idea possibilities by any means.
Many angles from which to present a magic act may be found if a little thought is given to the subject. Charles Waller suggested a field that has been untouched as far as I know. This is a type of magic, referred to before in this work, which he called "Perverse Magic." In this type of presentation the tricks seem to take charge of affairs themselves, doing quite the reverse of what the performer wishes.
Another idea with comedy possibilities would be in the performer adopting the character of a slightly worried and not at all confident magician. Suspense could be built up through character work, in a manner I am sure which would appeal to the average audience, which would give an air of uncertainty, not to say imminent disaster, to every trick he undertook to do. Somehow, in spite of the performer's awkwardness and palpable lack of training, the tricks would have a way of coming out successfully even when things looked most black.
Like the cut rope routine outlined previously, an entire act could be built up to a climax where it would look like the performer was facing complete disaster because of some very evident mistake. Yet all could come out well at the end.
Then, too, there is a wide field open to the character impersonator. Slyter's successful act is almost entirely due to his exceptional ability to play a part. Maldo, Pablo, Cantu and others, including Frakson, impersonate Spanish and Mexican types. Of course, for years there have been magicians impersonating Chinese from the time of the immortal Billy Robinson. But I believe the oriental character has been overworked.
A very good act could be devised for a character actor who could impersonate prominent people, movie actors, politicians, radio performers and the like. The act could be made up of a series of impressions of what kind of an act, for example, Roosevelt would have given had he been a magician, or Marlene Dietrich, or Bob Hope, or Katherine Hepburn, or Edward Arnold, or Henry Fonda. It would have all of the attraction the usual impersonator's act would have, plus an entirely new slant.
To my own knowledge, not one magician has tapped the field revealed by Bob Hope or Jack Benny. Both of these chaps play the characters of quite ordinary fellows, not too smart with the usual little ambitions and faults of the average person. Listen to either of these comedians and see what a peculiar slant their particular attacks would give a magician's act. I do not mean an impersonation of either of these men. I mean an act founded upon a performer acting and talking like these men, with similar weaknesses, vanities and other characteristics to those they exhibit.
There are so many sources for act ideas that it would be impossible to compile anything even faintly resembling a complete list.
An idea for an act may come from a particular type of character, as we have said before, Spanish, French, English, southerner, farmer or mechanic. Much comedy and good slants could be accomplished through coloring the talking accompaniment to dialects or characteristics and mannerisms. There is also the impersonation field, as mentioned previously.
An idea may be created from an ultimate reaction you desire to impose upon your audience. Houdini did it with fear in many of his escapes. But there are so many other reactions possible, well being, happiness, laughter, nostalgia, sentiment, romance, beauty, and many, many others. You can start with this ultimate reaction and achieve a trick to secure it. Then work backward from this climax to the beginning, selecting tricks or adapting effects to build up to this punch.
Situation is a good source of ideas. Put the character the entertainer is to play into a situation. This situation may be selected as the start of an act, or as its final climax. For example: the performer plays the part of a quite innocent book-keeper who has been mistaken for a notorious thug. Or a salesman suddenly confronted with a contract to sign and no pen to execute the agreement. Or a hapless motorist trying to convince a judge he wouldn't possibly break traffic laws. Most of the foregoing would be starting situations, although the salesman without the pen could be a climax.
Situation is a set of circumstances in which a character finds himself, a set of circumstances demanding that he do something. From this situation the act may develop to its climax. Or it may develop to a climax in which the character is in a better or worse situation.
Get the situation and work around it, selecting and adapting your program numbers to fit the circumstances.
It is said that the Chinese learned to make the products of the occidental world by carefully taking them apart. That's another way to create an act. Take apart a first flight act and see what makes it tick. But be sure not to take a magic act apart. I've said before that your guidance should come from the very TOP of the theater field and magicians are not at the top.
Take the act apart and see what makes it go. Was the act straight or in character? How long was it? What was the entertainer's attitude towards the audience? What quality in his work captured their attention at the start? Why did they like him? What steps were there in the act's progress to a climax? What was that climax? How was it achieved? How many numbers did the entertainer use? Time them individually. What did each accomplish?
You can ask yourself scores of questions like this about any big-time act. The questions should concern the character of the act, the dressing, time, nature of the punches, appeals to spectators, etc. Then use this as a blueprint for your own act. I don't mean to steal the man's act. That will provoke him no end. Use the skeleton framework of his act for your framework. Then hang your own material on it.
The material that makes up the act, this clothing on top of the framework, is what makes up the act's individuality to the audience. All acts are built on comparatively few basic formulas. These may be discovered by taking the acts apart. Then you can build your own act, from the magic theme, to this formula.
Has this been done before? Of course. That's where I got the formula for the International Magicians. I have always admired Clifford Fischer's formula for the Folies Bergere Among stage directors it was known as possibly the fastest, most entertaining and most sweeping in the world. It happened that I was the technical director for the planning of the auditorium in which the Folies Bergere played at the San Francisco Exposition. Later I was in charge of the design and construction of the curtains for this stage.
So while I was there I made an intensive study of this formula for use with the International Magicians show, which was in mind even then. When the show was first produced it took some time to whip it into what I ultimately had in mind.
I don't know that I ever told anyone what my formula pattern came from, but listen to what Leon Simon said in the Los Angeles Evening News after our opening there: "The most entertaining magic show ever presented on any stage. But it is more than hocus pocus that gives the show its high entertainment quality. Fitzkee , has endowed it with the smartness and lightning-like pace of a Folies Bergere. None of the essentials of theatrical showmanship is neglected."
I think that very well proves my point. Although the Fischer show used girls as the theme, with novelty performers working at terrific speed spicing it up, when I utilized the same formula, without the girl feature at all, and used instead a magic theme, even then the Folies Bergere formula was suggested to the reviewer's subconscious mind. Aside from the formula framework, there wasn't a single person or number that even faintly resembled anything in the Fischer show. I got quite a wallop when I read that.
We've already mentioned how a whole act can be built up around a single number, as in the cocktail trick. Ade Duval built up his silk production act from the phantom tube and its variations, originally. You, too, can use a trick as a source of ideas for an act. There are thousands of tricks available for experiment in this direction.
Just by way of illustration, we built up the old water fountain number into an act as a finale for our first part in the International Magicians show:
The curtain opens on an exterior scene with a large tree center stage and beneath it a park bench. The orchestra is playing "Isn't It a Lovely Day to Be Caught In the Rain," and the girl, wearing a bright red cellophane cape, enters with her boy friend who wears a white rain coat. The girl sings the number and at the end, while the orchestra continues softly, she goes to sit on the bench with the boy. There are flashes of lightning and rumbles of thunder.
The boy tries to put his arm around her but she moves away. About this time, unseen by the lovers, a solitary man enters, also clad for rain, and watches the by-play with much interest. The boy tries again, and the girl moves away again. Finally the boy reaches around behind the tree and brings forth a stream of water, which fountains into the air from his finger-tips.
He holds the stream of water behind the girl. She, thinking it is beginning to rain, puts up her umbrella and invites the boy beneath it with her. He grins triumphantly, places the stream on the point of the umbrella and gets beneath it, putting his arm around her.
The bystander snaps his fingers, struck with an idea, and steals the stream from the top of the umbrella, holding it behind his back. Another girl, also dressed in cellophane rain cape, enters and starts walking across the stage. But the bystander intercepts her and tips his hat. She tilts up her nose and tries to pass, but the bystander brings the stream of water into play and the girl, too, thinks it is raining and puts up her umbrella, inviting the bystander beneath it with her.
From the opposite side of the stage another girl enters hurriedly, being chased by a masher. The bystander, seeing his predicament, puts the stream of water on the masher's cigarette and pantomimes how to solve his difficulty. He too gets the idea and is presently invited under the third girl's umbrella.
Then a poor old drunk enters, umbrella open, holding out his hand in a vain search for rain. When the bystander goes over to him the drunk pantomimes his disappointment that it isn't raining. As the drunk holds the umbrella open out in front of him, the bystander deposits the stream on the umbrella's outer perimeter. Delightedly the drunk whirls the umbrella with the stream dancing along its edge.
From another side of the stage comes a girl with a small dog on a leash. The drunk deposits the stream on the dog's back, and the dog goes trotting across the stage to the tree. As he sniffs at the tree trunk, a stream of water squirts from the tree at the dog.
Meanwhile, the orchestra has kept up a musical background of "Isn't It a Lovely Day."
The first girl and her boy friend step forward and the music modulates to "Singing In the Rain." All of the company onstage join in the number and at the climax, with all fountains going, colored lights playing on the streams of water, the curtains close swiftly.
There are so many sources for act ideas that there is really no excuse for lack of one, or a number.
The mere essential of trying to portray human qualities and weaknesses suggests many idea germs.
An act could be planned from the viewpoint of how a drunk sees things. Another could be a demonstration of the psychology of a crazy man. Another act could be based on a serious, but totally meaningless explanation of the Einstein theory. Another could be a mock-serious lecture on what nonsense really is. Still another could be based on the character of a weight guesser, such as is frequently seen at carnivals, fairs and parks. I believe it was Page Wright who published a routine in The Sphinx based on a pitchman. Still another idea could come from the performer teaching the audience how to do card tricks, really teaching them nothing, but still performing tricks which he seems to assume they know how to do. Yet another idea could be based on the performer playing the character of a lawyer explaining how the law works, and using his tricks as the illustrations.
Full evening shows, because of their length of time, should present a variety of ideas in order to retain highest spectator interest.
Don't ever say you can't get an idea for an act. Why there are more ideas for acts than there are, well, magicians, even. And that's a lot.
<-|!*!|C|I|1|2|3|4|5|6|7|8|9|10|11|12|13|14|15|16|17|18|19|20|21|22|23|24|25|->
<-|Top|Showmanship For Magicians|Trick Brain|Magic By Misdirection|Mail|->