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SHOWMANSHIP
For
MAGICIANS
CHAPTER SIX
Rhythm, even though allied to music, is a distinct appeal in itself. This is the blood tingling beat to which an audience responds while listening to popular bands. Similar audience reactions will be witnessed during the performances of tap dancers, rhythm singers, and exhibition drummers. The chief quality of one of the top-flight quartets broadcasting over one of the networks is a keen stress on rhythm.
The rhythm doesn't necessarily have to be fast. As a matter of fact, the best recipe is to contrast the beats of various numbers.
In the International Magicians we combined a bit of nostalgia with sentiment and rhythm in our presentation of the floating ball. The number opened in one as a vibraharp solo with the soloist striking the opening chords slowly. As he launched into "Stardust" the curtains behind him parted very slowly, in tempo with the music, disclosing a lovely blonde girl in long flowing dress with a large silver ball in her hands. The background was a fulled silk curtain striped in pastel rainbow hues.
More as a dance made up of a series of poses, rather than a trick, the girl caused the ball to float about her in tempo with the music. Finally the ball slowly floated back towards her hands as the curtains started to close slowly. Just as the ball reached her hands she was cut from view and the soloist struck the last note. He took the bow as a soloist.
Manipulators have made use of this principle of rhythm, doing their moves in time with the music.
Marcia Adair does the mutilated parasol trick to the accompaniment of "A Pretty Girl Is Like a Melody." The entire routine is worked out in tempo with the music and the presentation, which is silent, is more of a series of slow dance movements. With a gracefully flowing red gown, the parasol and bag to match, this makes a very good sight number that has always registered well.
I've always thought that a comedy number could be worked out to some light accompaniment wherein the magician picked up, displayed and worked his apparatus in strict time with the music. The tempo should be brisk and the performer should definitely beat out the accents. Of course, brevity is important here as it is in practically all entertaining.
A punch could be added at the end where it would seem impossible that the performer could conclude in time with the music, but with a last-second frantic scramble he just makes it
If you do a walk-on, rhythm can at least be added to the routine by entering briskly in step with the music.
Another method of adding rhythm is to use background accompaniment that is frankly rhythmic. Some of the smarter orchestral arrangements will supply this. Popular numbers or standard numbers in smart, modern rhythmic arrangements may be used. If you work with an accompanist only, rhythm can be stressed through the selection of the proper numbers alone, provided they are played with a good sense of modern rhythm preferences.
A cute walk-on motif, in dance tempo, could be used as the signature for the entrance of your girl assistant. It could be played every time she enters until she stops walking. Use of the same number would always identify this girl. But be sure she looks and acts and is costumed in keeping with the selection.
This idea of an identifying walk-on motif could be carried further to include all assistants, if more than one is used-a comedy number for the low comedy assistant, a kidding number for a good-looking straight chap, an elephantine type number for one who is inclined to be a bit fat. But keep them in strict tempo, the music with the step and the step with the music.
We used a lively march tempo, beaten out in military style by the drummer alone, to introduce our finale in the International Magicians show. After a few words stating that the audience has seen the magicians in action individually and that now they would be given an opportunity to see them in action collectively so that they might judge who is the greatest magician in the world, the drums broke into a military break. Immediately one of the magicians darted from the wings, the drum beating a march tempo, a megaphone to his mouth, shouting, "I'm the greatest magician in the world." He was followed at once by another, with a still larger megaphone, shouting the same thing. Still another and another and with each performer came a larger megaphone and the same declaration, until the entire company was assembled across the stage.
At this moment the music changed to a fast rhythmic arrangement of "Marching Along Together." The curtains opened behind them, disclosing a stage full of apparatus-duck pans, bamboo frames, hats, bowl productions, flower productions, etc. And the magicians went to town with colorful silks, sailing cards, streamers, ringing alarm clocks, performing in three minutes an assortment of tricks which would normally take an hour and a half to do. The stage was a three-ring circus of magic, motion, color, action and rhythm.
While it has no bearing on this rhythm idea, I may as well give you a full description of this finale.
At the height of the action on the stage, with the quacking of ducks, cackling of chickens, ringing of bells, with the stage littered in silks, the magicians knee-deep in serpentine, a loud shot is heard off-stage. An attractive girl, dressed in a bunny costume and carrying a silk hat, dashes to center stage. Frozen in the positions they were in when the shot was fired, all cry, "Well. Who are you?"
The girl: "I'm the rabbit. And I don't care who is the greatest magician in the world." Whereupon she plunges her hand into the hat and brings forth . . . a magician, in the form of a doll in full dress with silk topper. Curtain.
As a further suggestion in connection with rhythm, a certain type of magician might be able to deliver his lines in rhythm. I don't mean verse. Some of the quartets on the air do their songs in this manner, more in a rhythmic talking style than singing.
Now on the subject of youth and sex appeal:
It is best of course if the performer can conduct himself in a youthful manner-I mean youthful in contrast with the deliberatenesss and slowly considered movements of middle age. For those who are not youthful, make-up will help, also a youthful slant to their thinking. Proper costuming will add to an illusion of youth, as well.
But if the performer himself is not youthful, he can at least secure youthful assistants. What has been said about a male performer of middle age holds true as well of a female assistant in the same age brackets. If she has youthful contours, dresses and acts in a youthful manner, is made up to look young and animated, she can gain the desired effect if she goes at it with intelligence and good taste.
However, the best solution is to use young-looking assistants of both sexes.
Youth is an undeniable selling point.
Now how does one go about stressing sex appeal in female assistants without becoming vulgar? Fundamentally, it is a matter of an extremely discriminating sense of good taste. The costumes may be a bit brief, a bit snug to reveal contours, a bit flattering to both complexion and figure. Remember that a long gown properly designed can carry more sex appeal than a brief costume without the subtle suggestions possible in the longer gown. Stress should be laid on feminine touches, an ornament here, a bit of ribbon there, a bit of flirting with the eyes, a tantalizing smile.
There are so many ways that sex appeal may be added to the show without becoming a liability, and so many more ways that clumsy attempts to add sex appeal will ruin the whole thing, that it is almost impossible to set down general rules.
But a bit of study given to the way this is done in the movies-angles, expressions, emphasis here and there, color, design, cut, coiffure, even movements, extended study will reveal more of specific value, with a definite objective in mind, than a thousand generalizations.
A study of methods of emphasizing sex appeal is a whole career in itself as will become instantly clear when it is realized to what ends the films have gone in glamorizing hundreds of quite ordinary girls. Glamour, you know, is merely a name for deliberately contrived sex appeal.
Probably that dictionary definition of sex as "the character of being male or female" more clearly emphasizes the exact shade of meaning intended here. Any expedient that awakens a response to the fact that a person is male or female, in our present sense, particularly female, will build up sex appeal. The appeal must be subtle and indirect. This is because numerous inhibitions and complexes, partly because of our training and partly through inherited characteristics, cause us to withdraw from any such suggestion that is forthright, frank or undisguised.
This is an important point, this necessity of being indirect in this appeal. The girl must seem totally unconscious of her attraction. She must seem wholly unaware that her costume, the accentuating features, her effeminateness, mannerisms and the like are designed to appeal in this manner.
Why the indirect appeal is stronger with the more intelligent type is again psychological, based on reasons that are too involved for discussion here. But the basic rule for subtlety cannot be ignored without disaster.