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This past weekend, I was honoured by a fellow magician and friend who asked me, for his gift, to perform at his birthday party (which means that I am now, officially, a b-b-birthday party magician). When I had taken my bows, and it was time for the socializing, several of his non-magic friends approached me with kind words to the effect that they had a surprisingly good time and did not really expect to enjoy a magic performance as much as they did. One kind person even offered that it was the best time he has had in a long while.
It was all very flattering, of course, and the reason performers work as hard as they do. Applause is addicting.
I then had a ninety-minute drive home through midnight-dark and winding mountain roads. If there was ever a time to cue the Scooby-doo theme, this was it: ancient trees silhouetted against a rising gibbous moon; twisting, tortuous two-lane road; light fog rolling in. Quite naturally, my mind turned the audience’s words over, and I began to ponder why it is that non-magic folk love magical entertainments like Harry Potter, monster movies, Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion, but shy away from live magical entertainment—and are then surprised when they find themselves enjoying a magic show.
The fact is, in all likelihood, not one of those people would have turned up to see me perform at that same place on that same night had it not been our mutual friend’s party, and yet they all volunteered that they enjoyed themselves very much, were surprised that they enjoyed themselves that much, and (now that they understood better what was offered) would happily buy a ticket to see it again—and bring their friends along.
Why should they be surprised, I wondered as I rattled through one spooky mountain pass after another. This is fun: the darkness, the atmosphere of uncertainty, the hint of mystery. I love it, and I believe that there are a lot more Velmas and Shaggys, Scoobys, Daphnes, and Freddies out there that love it, too.
I enjoyed being scared when I was a kid. All those scenes that confused people want to cut out of old Disney movies—Snow White running in terror through the woods, the Evil Queen’s transformation into the Crone, Pinocchio locked in the birdcage—those were my favourite parts! Universal monster movies, too, and the local haunted house attractions every Hallowe’en. Yes, please! I even think that, in some perverse way, I enjoyed shuddering under my covers in my darkened room, imagining things creeping up to my bed in the darkness because, I don’t know, somehow frighting yourself to sleep is a sort of comfort analogous to crying yourself to sleep.
Just as with crying, I think fear is cathartic. They both remind one that I am alive and really feeling life!
But what is fear? In all its forms, fear surrounds the mystery of uncertainty: Is there something lurking in the room with me? Am I going to be fired in the morning? Does that big chap outside the bar have something unpleasant in store for me? Did I turn off the oven before I left the house? The mystery worries us, and worry is fear’s kindling.
Real fear is never fun, of course, but there is another fear, which I will call theatric fear, which is (for those of us with a sense of humour and flexible imaginations) a gilt-edged blast. I do not call this ‘pretended’ fear or ‘safe’ fear because theatric fear does not feel pretended or safe. Take a big plunge on a roller coaster; there is nothing pretended or safe-feeling about it, but it is engineered to be safe whilst genuinely scaring the tar out of you.
So it is with theatre. The writing, performance, special effects, &c. are (again) engineered to elicit your emotional responses. Ancient Greeks called it the ‘ennobling emotions’ when you watched a theatrical situation but responded to it with real feelings. Something in you is properly ‘hooked up’ when you see characters on stage going through some emotional catastrophe that you know (at least subconsciously) is only being simulated and yet you feel real empathy for them. If you can feel this for play people, you are prepared to encounter real people with a set of well-tempered emotional responses. Such is (or at least was and should be still) the role of theatre.
Emotions require exercise every bit as much as muscles and minds, and theatre is the gymnasium for emotional exercise.
Once we set aside the populist notion that performance is only about ‘entertainment,’ then we are better able to understand why interpretive artists take our work as seriously as we do. Of course, there is always an element of entertainment, but, strictly speaking, ‘to entertain’ means only to pass the time. Certainly, there is also a desire to amuse, but ‘to amuse’ does not merely mean ‘to tickle’ but, rather, it is an attempt to set the Muse amongst us, for the Muses are the goddesses of art. Technically, one is ‘amused’ when one is brought into a full appreciation of the art before one (and not merely that of Thalia, who is the goddess of comedy). To be ‘amused’ is to be placed in a sort of trance wherein Artistic Splendor reveals herself to you in her true form.
And, yet, there is still more to performance art than this combination of entertainment and amusement. Indeed, the very point of the performance is catharsis. Catharsis is release: A good comedy releases satisfying laughter. A good tragedy releases cleansing tears.
Stop and think about it: the last unsatisfying performance experience that you had (whether it was streaming, cinema, theatre, or street performance) was unsatisfying precisely because it gave you no catharsis. It just sort of stopped. No finale. No ‘ending.’ No point. And you went away feeling nothing apart from the feeling that you wasted your time.
You watched with the hope (nay, the expectation) that you would be rewarded with an emotion. Evil destroyed! Virtue vindicated! Luscious kiss delivered! Family reunited! Kitten rescued! Right? When it is done well, you feel compensated for your time and attention, but if done poorly (or not at all), you feel swindled; you might even feel angry.
Why? Well, you were entertained (it passed the time), you might even have been amused (at least with expectation), but you did not receive that catharsis that would release all of those emotions that you have built up, ready to expend. It’s like an irritating tickle that just won’t sneeze (oh, how we hate that!)
And this brings me to the centre of this essay: the relevance of magic.
· All magic entertains. It passes the time, and you may watch it idly or riveted.
· Good magic amuses. You are, however briefly, tricked (more about this below).
· Proper magic delivers a catharsis. That catharsis is not laughter, nor is it tears. Magic delivers a different catharsis, which is a type of theatric fear, one that—done properly—opens a door into mystery and wonderment.
Far too many magicians think of magic as a mere adjunct to corny one-liners, just something to keep the hands and eyes busy while the performer is living out his dream of being a comedian. I say ‘far too many’ because these are the ‘magicians’ that most non-magic folk see at parties, conventions, and table-hopping at the local pub or restaurant. What these performers fail to realize is that magic is not comedy (although both magic and comedy trade on the movement from expectation to surprise—more on this in the next blog). These performers mis-teach their audiences to imagine that that is all there is to magic: a bland paste to be seasoned with jokes and chuckles.
Other magicians forget to ‘sell’ their catharsis. For example, you will find a lot of tragedy in magic: decapitations, eviscerations, skewerings, disappearances, and even death. Yet these are rushed-through and played for the ‘watch what I can do’ moment, which completely ignores the grand guignol opportunity that is ‘almost’ presented to an audience that really would rather like to be horrified (just a bit, if you please).
For example, in 1956 the great Indian magician, Sorcar, sawed his assistant in half on live UK television, BBC’s Panorama. The trick went as it always went for the magician. He placed her in a ‘trance’ to protect her from the operation then sawed her in half and wheeled her two halves about to show that she was divided indeed. Next, he reassembled her, took up her hand, patted it, and begged her to wake from her trance. The show ran late, however, and at just that moment the station cut the feed. Across Great Britain worried people rang their stations to ask if the lady had been slaughtered before their very eyes, and Sorcar played to sold-out houses for several years afterwards.
In Sorcar’s case, the unintended catharsis for his performed tragedy was a perceived death, and an enormous viewing audience responded with a satisfied horror: He killed her? Surely not! Good God, no!—That is theatric fear at its most profound.
But not enough magicians learn from this. They squeeze doves out of colourful silks with the aplomb of a sommelier opening a bottle of claret: Is this not nice, monsieur?—and completely ignore the perception that he is, god-like, creating life from nothing! …only to stick them into a cage where they vanish or else pop them in a pan and burn them up—because, you know, that makes them go away. No! For the love of Kris Kringle, you just immolated living creatures with the devil-may-care smile of a Rhine-river-tour-guide! Something happened here, but the magician ignored it, and, so, the audience missed it.
As far as that audience is now concerned, it was puzzling, where those birdies went, but not cathartic. It was a good trick, thus amusing (those silks were quite pretty), but that is all there was to it. We didn’t feel anything. So, the audience moves to the next logical mentality and tries to figure out how he did it—and the magician gets sore because you’re not supposed to do that.
Just enjoy it! He huffs. But he does not realize that the audience is perplexed by this instruction. The audience does not know how to enjoy it beyond figuring it out because the magician did not take them down any other road. He produced and then vanished a flock of birds with no rhyme or reason for doing it. It was very pretty, and pretty deceptive, but the audience is now far more likely to ask how it happened than why.
Why? No catharsis.
A good magician (and, boy, there are some really good magicians out there) takes the audience on a journey, as does a good book or movie. The magician establishes a theme, a reason for taking this journey—perhaps it is a thing to be discovered, or realized, or even remembered from our collective subconscious or our shared cultural awareness. We are going somewhere rather than merely watching something.
The audience is transported, placed on that twisting mountain road at night: cue the Scooby-doo theme. Something is going to happen, and, when it does, it is going to mean something. (We are now light years beyond guessing which card you picked.)
The magic happens along the way. It emerges like images flashing across the glow of your headlamps. Flash! Something is at the side of the road—unexpected but suddenly filled with meaning. No, it has retreated into the blackness as we speed past it—but it was there. You begin to wonder about it when, Flash! Another vision sweeps across your consciousness. The journey is engaged, you are traveling, the mysterious woodland is lighted only by the rising moon and your momentary car lights—but you realize that it is real! What was that theme again? The magician reminds you that you took this journey for a reason, and you have made some startling discoveries. What do they mean? The magician philosophizes upon that meaning, what it might yield you in life, what comforts (or questions) it may raise.
It meant something.
Nobody’s thinking “how’dee-doo-dat?” They are too busy basking in the feeling that has been created and the ideas that have been floated.
Now they have experienced wonder: The world is bigger than we imagine, and, yet, we do remain important in it. That is The Great Mystery, and that is what makes magic (done right) relevant.