Reminders of the Simple Things
by Kenton Knepper

Spending a fine evening the other night watching amateurs and professional magicians/mentalists perform, I was struck by the need of a few simple reminders.

We all need reminders from time to time, and so I will remind myself by sharing with you little things I was taught along the way towards professional performing.

Much was made some years ago about the difference between “practice” and “rehearsal.” That the difference between the two was news to some was a shock to so many of us who learned to rehearse in theatre and on larger magic stage shows. For those of you who may be unaware of this difference still, here is a small reminder as a point of reference.

· Practice
This is when you are trying to learn how to make a trick or routine work. You might need to learn a sleight, practice how to make a card go to the top of the deck, how to peek a billet or perform a secret load steal.

Practice is about learning the basics. These are the essentials you have to learn to do before you can begin to rehearse.

· Rehearsal
This is when you do your trick or routine of tricks just as if you are actually performing them. You will attempt to go through the trick or act as if an audience is present. You will need all the props you will use for performing this trick, all the music you might need, the tables and where they will be positioned on stage, and so on. A "full dress rehearsal" means that you will need to have on the same costume or stage clothes you will use when you are on stage, the same music, same lighting, etc. You will essentially be performing a show without the audience.

For smaller acts, most time is spent on practice. This turns out to be a problem, as one rarely performs in the same way one practices. Most time should be spent on perfecting your act in rehearsals, performing as if an audience is really there. During these rehearsals you must continue performing no matter what happens. Just like what would happen in a real show. You will need to perform in rehearsal a great many times (far more than practicing) before doing dress rehearsals and then presenting yourself to the public.

If this sounds like too much work to you, maybe magic and mentalism isn’t your favorite art form. If you think magic is just buying a trick and doing it, the people who convinced you of such nonsense sold you on mediocrity at best, and bludgeoning art forms to death at worst.

Magic and mentalism is not "paint-by-the-numbers" art, no matter how many dealers and supposed creators tell you that it can be. “Just buy this and you will be famous!” is usually followed by “easy to do – no skill required.” Let me ask you, would you believe such silliness if someone advertised you could be the next Picasso or the next famous pop performer just by purchasing a paint-by-number-kit or a sing-a-long Karaoke machine? Ridiculous, isn’t it?

This is the bane and overdue bill of goods sold to many new wannabe performers of magic and mentalism, and it is a flat out lie.

You are correct in thinking you fool some of the people some of the time. Then again, the drunk at the microphone singing along loudly has friends tell him how good he was the night he sang drunk too.

If you are ready to really perform, and doing a single card trick counts as performing by the way, here are a few things to keep in mind as you rehearse.

(“Kenton, I am not going to rehearse. I just want to do tricks. Will this stuff you write help me?” My first response is “God help us all then” but at the worst, yes please at least stop and consider these basics, even if all you are going to do is hire yourself out as a performer while refusing to rehearse like one… I guess that’s the best I can say. Read it anyway. It might help the rest if us even if you do not think it will help you to know these things.)

Let It Go
Even in a perfectly routined act, performed thousands of times, things go wrong. This may be due to mechanical error, setting an effect improperly before the show, a stage crewmember messing up an item, or maybe you are just having one of those nights.

Let’s pretend you are pulling a lot of streamers out of a production prop, and the streamers get caught on a nail at the bottom of the prop that you simply cannot see. You think of tugging on the streamer, but it cost you a lot of money and you can imagine it begin ripped to shreds if you tugged upon it. Instead, you go digging around inside the prop to try and unhook the streamer.

The audience laughs, and you don’t know why. You are really nervous now. You have to unhook the silk, because the bowl of water underneath it is going to be used for your big finale. Well, what you think is your big finale. With enough rehearsal time you would have discovered this could be an issue before, but you didn’t think it was worth the trouble to rehearse all that much. Now you are on stage and everyone is giggling while you stand there trying to get the streamer out of the prop so you can continue your planned on routine.

LET GO.

By insisting on doing what you had planned on doing, you are causing more trouble for yourself that it is worth. Unless you are going to produce two naked ladies and an elephant from that prop as your finale, it isn’t worth the audience seeing you fumble and struggle.

Act as if you were checking to see that the streamer was the end of all that came out of the prop, pull on the streamer a few times, smile and extend your arms in applause position. The audience will think this is the end, and that you were acting. If you say “Thank you and good night” the audience will know that is the end of the show. If you say “Thank you” with confidence, they will assume this is the way the show is meant to end.

But if you continue to keep tugging on the streamer instead and trying to undo the mess inside, you only communicate to an audience that you have a mess, and therefore you are a mess. It’s better to let go in cases such as these.

Another meaning of "let go"could mean that instead of letting go of your finale, you let go of how you do it. You might spill some of the water out of the bowl as you pull it out from under the streamer. Give up that you have to have the bowl be entirely full, in other words. You might instead decide it is worth ruining the streamer for the sake of a good performance, knowing you will fix the problem after the show so it never happens again. Perhaps ripping the streamer once is worth it.

A good performer will try and do whatever it takes to keep going and make it look as if what is happening is part of the intended act, even if it isn’t.

So let go when you have trouble and do something else to end the show or go in a new direction. If all you needed was the water out of the bowl for the finale, for instance, there might have been others who had glasses of water nearby. A stagehand might have held the bowl of water for you when you took it out of the bottom of the prop instead of insisting you take it out of the top of the prop and hold the bowl of water yourself.

Never be so rigid in your thought or action that you appear to mess up. If the streamer rips as you pull it out strongly, act as if you think your pants ripped and look at your backside. Feel the back of your pants, and you’ll get a laugh. Wrap the streamer around your waist as if hiding a torn area and you’ll be thought a comedic wonder for coming up with such a funny ending to a standard trick. Just let go and do something else if you need to, rather than be stubborn and show the audience that you are failing.

You might not think up such things when you are on stage, but if you will allow yourself to let go and adjust you have very high odds of ending well.

As If: Act Nervous and You Are
You can be ready to jump out of your skin, but if the audience cannot see your nervousness, they think you are calm. If your hands are shaking before you perform, shake them wildly. Exaggerate the issue for yourself. Keep shaking them as if you are so nervous your hands will wiggle themselves right off of your arms as you shake them wildly. Soon you, the nervousness, and your hands will get tired, and when you stop shaking them purposely, they will relax. They will want to rest, and so they will.

If your whole body is shaking, do the same thing with your whole body. Who cares what it looks like when no one is watching? Even if crewmembers or performers backstage see you, it is far better than an audience seeing you shake. Everyone has their own warm up routine before they walk on. Performers will assume such wild movement is how you get yourself excited to perform. Even they do not need to know it is how you stop from showing your nerves on stage.

Act like you have a problem and to the audience, you do have a problem. Act as if what just happened on stage is meant to have happened, and the audience will accept that you intended on such action. Act "as if" – act the way you want an audience to think of you, and they are more likely to think of you in that way. As in “let go”, if you act as if a fumble or trouble were meant to take place, then the audience will likely believe this is all part of the act.

Well, we've both been reminded on the things we often need to be reminded of, at least for now. We'll keep looking at simple reminders of simple things next month.

Kenton