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SHOWMANSHIP
For
MAGICIANS
CHAPTER EIGHT
Color is in keeping with certain types of acts and not in keeping with others. There is nothing more out of character than a stoutish man in business suit pulling yards and yards of silk, in effeminate pastel shades, from a hat or a box or a tube.
In Ade Duval's act, which has been titled Rhapsody In Silk, during which the stage becomes covered with a profusion of specially designed silks in a profusion of colors, it is in character. But those colors are distinctively chosen.
In the costumes of girl assistants, feminine tints are in good character, if handled with a discriminating eye to color harmony and contrast. But the male assistant, if attired in color, should prevail in the stronger hues.
This color idea must be handled with care. Everything that has color should be selected to some predominating key. Just mere splashes of indiscriminate heterogeneous pastel shades are usually gaudy, blatant and very poor taste.
Color should not be acquired at random, selected just because some individual silk appeals to the performer, without regard to colors that are to be used with it, or disregarding other groups of colors. Usually someone capable of combining colors in good harmony should select color with great care, in not too great a profusion.
If the colors are to be seen in artificial light they should be selected with the warming influence of artificial light in mind. A stage designer usually makes his selections from a palette somewhat colder than what the ultimate appearance is to be, just because of the warming effect of artificial light.
Even the whitest illumination is not really white. It is deficient in certain cold ranges. The result is that pale yellows, oranges, pinks and certain reds "wash out," while the tints of green and blue become grayed.
Under colored illumination such as green, blue or red, unbelievable changes take place. Red light turns blue black and red white. Blue light causes red to appear as black or dark gray, while blue seems white.
It is almost impossible to get such shades as lavender under white light, while red or blue light causes the violet hues to appear, respectively, red or blue, whichever the illumination.
Just because you are a magician, it is not necessary to use the conventional variegated colors. If the character of your routine is such that silks are in keeping, have the colors in keeping with the type of act. Perhaps a great many acts now using silks would be better off without them.
While color is desirable and pleasing to the public, it is not absolutely essential. It is highly undesirable if it is out of character with the routine. Can you imagine, as an example, Bob Hope, or Bing Crosby, or Jack Benny, or Al Jolson, ringing in effeminate variegated pastel shades, except for a laugh?
The word "harmony" has a great many meanings as applied to the show business. It really means the quality of being pleasing to the senses, to hearing, to sight, to the feelings. It means an accord in feeling, action or manner. It carries with it a sense of completeness and perfection resulting from diversity in unity, orderliness and agreement in relating the various parts of the whole.
It not only means a satisfactory balance in color. But it means also a harmonious balance of the whole act. It means that the character of the performer, his costume, the properties, the music the rhythm and tempo, the delivery, the grooming, all components, complement, reinforce, add contrast, add strength, blend tastefully into a completely satisfying entity.
Good taste and a sense of the fitness of things are invaluable in achieving complete harmony.
Occasionally a bit of romance may be integrated into the entertainment. It may come as the result of a song, a musical number, or through the narrative accompanying a trick. There is a great difference between romance and dripping sentimentalism. Heroic self-sacrifice, the quest for an ideal, or devotion to a person or a cause are often much more romantic than a mere love affair. This quality, if sought, and if in keeping with the character of the act, must be handled with a great deal of discretion or it can become nauseating.
Your appeals to sentiment need not necessarily be direct. Often it can be brought in by implication. The songs of Al Jolson, such as "Mammy," and love for home, or the South supply sentiment. Most of Bing Crosby's songs bring in sentiment of one kind or another. Although many people mistake a biological urge for sentiment, it is too narrow a meaning.
Sentiment is emotional. It is awakened by things that seem to have worth like mother love, love of country, sacrifice and the long list of things we have been taught to believe are good. It is a feeling of response in the soul.
But if it becomes maudlin, it does terrific damage.
One example of a sentiment appeal was the use we made of Marilyn Miller's old number, "Easter Parade," in the International Magicians show. It was used as the background when the entire company tore tissue squares and converted them to a variety of hats.
A good example of romance appeal was another number we built up with the doll house illusion.
The soprano, a young girl, was singing "Castle of Dreams" from "Irene." After the first chorus the curtains behind her parted, disclosing a miniature replica of a cottage with the boy friend beckoning to her. When she asked him what it was, he told her it was a model of a love nest he was going to have built just for her. Turning the house around, he showed her the windows from which she would hang the laundry. Around facing the front again, he showed her the inside and brought forth the upper floor to show her the furniture. Meanwhile the girl was cooing with delight.
Backgrounding the dialogue were still the strains of the song the girl had been singing. The boy showed her the front door and where the card would announce, "Mr. and Mrs." Then, with just a bit of worry, the girl asked if there ever had been another girl in his life. He protested, "No," very strongly, whereupon the doll house opened and a sophisticated-looking gal in red dress stood up and said dryly, "The same old line, eh, Daddy?" Blackout.
Romance can be worked into a magic routine, but it must be done intelligently. Just a mere romantic narrative to accompany some trick done with a red box or a flock of purple silk scarves won't do. Patter lines positively are corny, regardless of the subject, unless done as broad comedy, kidding the performer himself., I am using the Funk and Wagnalls meaning of "patter."
However, two good-looking young people could doubtless develop a cute courtship number. To make it interesting, there must be a bit of conflict, perhaps a rival for the girl's hand, or reluctance on her part. Through some trick, I mean a trick from a magician's point of view, he overcomes the girl's objections and she falls in his arms.
Such an idea might be built up from the following: The girl walks by and the magician tips his hat and takes from it a bouquet, which he hands to her. She looks at it indignantly, changes it to a cabbage which she hands back to him. He reaches in the air and produces a cigarette. Intrigued, the girl watches him. He produces a box of matches, extracts one, throws the box in the air and scratches the match, after which he lights his cigarette. He makes a pass at his cigarette and it vanishes, appearing in the girl's mouth. She takes it from her mouth, indignantly, throws it down, but immediately finds another in her hand. She does it again and again, while the boy watches her laughing. Finally, in desperation she appeals to him. He causes it to vanish and reappear in his own hands.
Frankly intrigued now, the girl watches him as he materializes a single rose and offers it to her. She shakes her head and pantomimes that the rose is the wrong color. He passes his hand over it. Still not right. Again. This time the color pleases her and she smiles. He kisses the rose, tosses it in the air and it reappears on her dress or in her hair.
Now he produces a scarf that he throws around her shoulders or ties around her head. Then he produces a bottle and a glass and pours a drink of wine. He hands it to her, but as she touches it she shakes her head naughty-naughty and it changes to milk, which she immediately transforms to a can of evaporated milk and carefully stows into her bag.
Now he has a baby chick in his hand that he cuddles within his cupped palms. The girl leans close to look and the boy kisses her. She seems to like it but draws away like a good little girl. He produces a dollar bill from the air, another and another. She comes closer as he produces the money, takes his arm. His arm slips around her as she watches in delight. Finally, he brings forth a wallet into which he carefully shows the money and prudently puts it into his pocket.
He produces a parasol, hands it to the girl, links her arm in his, plucks a cigar from the air and walks off with the girl. As they reach the exit, the girl pulls his arm around her and, her arm free, deftly extracts the wallet from the pocket of the blissfully ignorant boy.
For music a series of numbers immediately suggest themselves. When the girl enters: "A Pretty Girl Is Like a Melody." When he produces the bouquet: "Give Me One Dozen Roses." When he produces the cigarette: "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes." When he materializes the single rose: "Only a Rose," or "Roses In Picardy." When he produces the bottle: "Sweet Adeline." When she changes the wine to milk: a rube number. When he kisses her: "Just a Little Love a Little Kiss."
During the money production: "Pennies From Heaven." And at the end: "'Love Is the Grandest Thing."
The above is not an act. It is merely the SUGGESTION for an act. Between the writing of that outline and the performance of the entertaining act lie multitudes of details. The various properties must be secured, each PERFECTLY suited to this routine. The various moves, business, actions and reactions must be interconnected and interrelated to a routine. Costumes must be selected. Endless rehearsals must be held. All excess must be trimmed out, until finally a satisfactory act seems to have been developed. Then a musical score is written, timed perfectly with the act.
After that there must be endless rehearsals until the whole thing becomes almost second nature, until it can be done subconsciously.
The act as it will finally be evolved may resemble the original synopsis very little. In fact, if many added, better and more original ideas have not been developed, as attention is given to specific details, it is almost certain that you have failed. Few finished routines are the same as the original idea. Thought plus an idea are basic components of a good entertaining routine. An idea, alone, is seldom more than an initial sign-post.
We now come to nostalgia, that longing for home and the things of the happy past. Certainly there is no better way of bringing in this old reliable than through music. Hundreds of hit tunes of recent years are capable of reawakening memories of people, places, episodes and the like.
For this purpose a magician might well team-up with a singer and do his routine in conjunction with a routine of songs. Of course, the material used should be appropriate to the songs selected. If a singer isn't available, a pianist will do quite as well. A combination of a good pianist, with the magician working within the curve of a grand piano, might be a definitely pleasing novelty. Certainly, many audience appeals are possible.
Nostalgic comedy is inherent in a routine that might burlesque the old-fashioned "Professor." This burlesque need not be too broad, and neither need it be far removed from the conventional performance of magic as witnessed even today.