I recently stumbled across an article on improv comedy that suggested that a comedian should be at least one of these three things:
- Cool
- Smart
- Funny
While it’s certainly true for comedians, I think it’s equally important for magicians to meet that criteria too. In fact, I’d suggest that to be the best magician possible, you’d need to be all three (perhaps not funny all the time, but certainly be able to use humour when required).
I can think of only a few magicians that truly meet all three. And us magicians have an extra battle too: we have to be incredible magicians too. And those comedians think they’ve got it tough!
From a commercial point of view this makes total sense to me. But artistically it sounds really limited and even sad. Popular musicians are def not expected to be CS+F. Same goes for actors or writers. Yes, of course, magic is a performance art, and we often choose the most ‘everyday’ venues, but I very much hope that in the not too distant future the general public (and we ourselves) will be more comfortable with a wider range of styles including cranky, strange, uncool, etc. (Side note: I suspect Paul Harris was one of the original CS+F magicians. Or at least the IDEA of Paul Harris.) Funny makes almost everything more commercial. So does smart and cool. Of the three, it is the ‘cool’ that is rarest in magic circles. Plenty of smart individuals in our craft. Also loads of humorous people. But truly ‘cool’…? Seldom. Seems to me, most of the people who wander into magic that are C,S, AND funny…they usually move onto more appreciative audience and far lusher creative opportunities (Johnny Carson, Orson Welles, etc, etc, etc, etc.) Let’s all try to keep moving this whole ‘magic thang’ FORWARD. Thanks for posting yet another thought-inspiring blog Andi G!
From the very moment, I knew that being a “nerdy” magician, so to speak, was not going to cut it for me, so I polished a “cool” magician look ‘n’ feel. At first, I thought every magician should be like that, because I thought that “nerdy” magicians everywhere are ruining our image in public.
Only now do I realise that not all magicians can be cool, and not all magicians can be funny…
Guess that’s what they were talking about, when they said “be yourself”. Figures.