The Heck with Reviews....

[Aaron Sterling]

an interesting article that comments albeit briefly on the role of the critic and what one looses in the democritization of taste.

http://m.theatlantic.com/magazine/archi ... ur/383497/

I wasn't going to respond to your previous post, but this post includes content I appreciate, so I'll tell you (part of) my own analysis of the collapse of American magic, on the off chance you're interested.

Recall the story about Vernon, where he said that people didn't get good in New York, they got good by going on the road and then coming back to New York. Well, basically what happened over the last thirty years is that magicians stopped going on the road. In the words of the article you posted, they stopped putting in their 10,000 hours.

Among friends, I refer to this as "The Great Plague of 1985." But to be more serious, the problem was partly economic and structural. There are fewer venues for live music, for standup comedy, for live entertainment of all sorts, and magic got hit too. And there was essentially no gold standard for closeup performance -- no Juan Tamariz or Paul Daniels on weekly American television -- that could set the bar for would-be performers at the magic club. So maybe you had an occasional pocket of excellence, reminiscent of the Long Beach Mystics, but, in general, magic clubs devolved into people who wanted to perform for other magicians. And the word "magician" often seems to translate to "sleight-of-hand fetishist," in my experience.

There are a lot of symptoms as a result of this, for example North America FISM being an embarrassment year after year. Meanwhile, Korea, China, France, Spain all have close up on TV on a regular basis, so would-be performers in those countries know what it's like to look really good with inexpensive props. And so, the magic culture in those countries is more healthy.

Perhaps the difference between your perspective and mine is that I see this as a tremendous opportunity. There's a hole, and people with the right skill sets could fill it.

Regarding the article: no citations, so I'm concerned it might be giving a pop version of history, rather than a real one. But, that aside, I'm not sure it's on point. It's discussing the gatekeeping and subsequent "democratization" of the high arts. The variety arts have stood as a counterpoint to the high arts for a long time. Robert-Houdin of course tried to move magic into the high arts, but I don't think that's where magic currently sits in US entertainment culture. Magicians have had to hire a barker, or to generate their own publicity, for hundreds of years.

Thanks for the link.

[Brad Henderson]

it's an article written for the Atlantic, not an arts journal. The historic material is accurate.

re gate keepers. you miss the point.

the democritization of taste allows informed voices to be given equal weight to experts. So, quality (and innovation) are no longer domains of excellence but that of appealing to those with the least information.

Now, the loosening of gatekeepers has had some very positive effects. It has opened the door to access to work by people in ALL fields who might otherwise have not managed to run the gauntlet.

as the article points out this shift has been away from singularity and more to mass appeal. There is a price to be paid for that.

this shift affects all arts - all endeavors. From Houdin to the vaudevillian, neo or classical. the article specifically addresses the issue of lumping arts together as well as references the effects of this shift on even further removed fields such as cuisine.

[Ted M]

Brad, can you point us to a historical time when you would have been happy with the state of magic?

Not just one or two performers, but the overall state of magic at that time?

[Bill Mullins]

Has any creative field ever enjoyed a period where one could say "This is good enough -- no need to do better"?

[Aaron Sterling]

re gate keepers. you miss the point.

the democratization of taste allows informed voices to be given equal weight to experts. So, quality (and innovation) are no longer domains of excellence but that of appealing to those with the least information.

Who are the experts, in your view? From where I'm standing, the "magic community" doesn't qualify. Some of the strongest performers I know are not well known in the magic community, because they are too busy performing to lecture much, and have no need to hawk their latest trick or book. Why try to squeeze money from the nichest of niche markets when you can get paid by a broader constituency?

It's possible to learn a lot of interesting things from magic books and lectures. There's even a cottage industry for investing spiritual meaning into card tricks, so men can use their childhood hobby as a meditative practice while they're going through a midlife crisis. And I consider that a perfectly legitimate topic. But, straight talk: it's divorced from the reality of magic as a performing art. It is not related to increasing the number of moments per minute your performance achieves for a 21st century audience.

And the economic structure encourages people who can't get enough gigs to publish more, and lecture more. So the publication sphere is filled with people who may be brilliant in some ways, but they are only mediocre at getting booked and rebooked. For every DVD by Joanie Spina, there are 500 DVDs by people who may never have heard of Joanie Spina.

As long as there is such a divorcement in the US between magicians and the performance of magic, there will be lots of magicians who evaluate performances with criteria that are barely related to magic performance. As a result, a lot of conventional wisdom in the magic community is incorrect. Or, at the very least, I thing it's wrong. So I'm fine with magicians not being the gatekeepers.

[Brad Henderson]

I think you are bringing a lot of baggage or misunderstanding to this conversation.

First, the entire thread is intended to be a condemnation of non magicians as gatekeepers. It was a theater critic who pointed out issues in performance and some here feel that the show breaking even is somehow an indictment of the critic's opinion.

So, yes, magicians as gate keepers are a huge problem because we are an insular bunch, too easily manipulated by popularity, who posses skewed values that cater to their own entertainment interests and not necessarily those of their paying audiences.

The show under question by magic standards is probably as good as any most of us have seen. But in the bigger picture there are flaws. Some believe that commercial success should silence any comment on said flaws.

those people are working in the new paradigm as explained in the article - quality is measured by commercial success not other qualitative measures.

now if we want to zero this conversation onto the world or magic as it affects magicians in our cottage industry - we see the same truth. Popularity wins out. Doesn't matter if the trick is the cover drawing of a fulves kids book, lax sold a ton of them ergo he is an important magician. Doesn't matter that Miller republished an inferior version of punx's trick, he has many fans there for this trick is good

that's what the article says is happening. we see it big picture and small

take a step back and read what's adtually said and I think you will see that you are arguing with only yourself.

[Aaron Sterling]

those people are working in the new paradigm as explained in the article - quality is measured by commercial success not other qualitative measures.

And I'm saying that the article is vague, unscientific, and, when it comes to the variety arts, off topic. Robert-Houdin promoted his own business popularly, as did Melies, who bought R-H's theater. In the US, Houdini became the iconic magician despite not being as "deep" a performer as his contemporaries, because of his self-promotion.

If anything, there's a longstanding tradition in magic that marketing is more important than artistry. So Witness the Impossible fits right in!

Your claim is simply not true. It's not a new phenomenon for performing magicians to have to be their own director of marketing and schmoozification. That goes back hundreds of years, and the most famous names in conjuring also tended to have good heads for promotion and business. What *is* new, is the low percentage of US magicians with extensive real-life performing experience. That's what I'm pointing to, what you call my baggage. There is, indeed, a change in the industry over this generation and the previous one. It just isn't the change you're claiming.

Anyway, I've spent too much time on this thread, though I've enjoyed reading and writing here. I'll check back again in a few days. Happy new year to you.

[Brad Henderson]

that's not what the article says.

sorry.

[observer]

Could somebody explain what is actually wrong with this show? Cause it sounds pretty much like what Thurston or Blackstone or Carter would have done if they'd had access to modern pyro etc. technology. Is that bad?

[NYCJoePItt]

Sitting at intermission.... Full review later. Enjoying the show so far. Hobson and Ho-Jin are highlights so far.

[NYCJoePItt]

I saw THE ILLUSIONISTS on Broadway as a Christmas gift tonight on the closing weekend. With a 15 minute intermission, the show ran nearly 2.5 hours and the house was sold out. Adam Trent as The Futurist quickly opens the show with a transposition and plays host several times throughout the evening. There is a huge opening number with a few fun large illusions and dancers to introduce the entire cast. Plenty of lighting and smoke effects, black art and the such to take advantage of the entire stage. I appreciated the live music and special sound effects to keep things interesting.

I believe Jeff Hobson had the first full routine. It was his typical wonderful schtick, producing a signed lost card from his mouth. I love Jeff Hobson. I think he has mastered his routine and is a master of improv. He makes me laugh, his magic is good, and he has the audience in the palm of his hands. In the second act, Hobson did his Egg Bag. I have also seen this before. Loved it again and look forward to seeing it the next time. Jeff Hobson also played host throughout the show as well.

Dan Sperry came on quickly to pull a chewed life saver from his neck onto a piece of dental floss. He performed two more pieces in the second act. A dove act to heavy metal and russian roulette with a broken glass bottle under a paper bag. I've never seen Dan perform before and I think he is an acquired taste. I'll say that his magic is accomplished though he did seem to struggle some with the dove act. Very few magicians are natural when it comes to dove magic. I wasn't particularly crazy about his choice of music for the doves or for the "story" he was trying to tell. Something to do with smashing a white bird into a "bloody" red silk and then turning that into a red bird, etc. But the audience loved it.

I also had a problem with Dan's russian roulette act. Even though he had plenty of fun with an adult audience member as a helper, with SO many children in the audience (under 10) he encouraged them all to look up failed attempts or roulette on the internet. He even showed a short video of failed attempts as we all groaned. He also kept reminding the kids that everything they needed to perform this themselves, they could find at home. I just thought "you have to keep your audience in mind when you say things like that." I think he was wrong. Let me just sum up by saying that clearly his magic and his act are good. I just have to questions his choices for this audience.

Aaron Crow borrowed a wedding ring and placed it into a cored apple. Then proceeded to shoot an arrow through the apple and capture the ring into a bullseye target. I would tell you more, but while the audience liked it fine, I didn't care for it. Aaron didn't speak a word. I believe I've seen him before and he always performs in this manner. He did a lot of posing and pointing. He then stood out halfway up into the aisle of the audience to shoot the arrow above people's heads onto the stage. It just went beyond the bounds of credibility for me. Once again, the audience seemed to appreciate it just fine.

Kevin James did all things that Kevin James is known for doing. And he did them all well. They were spaced nicely throughout the show. I thought the name The Inventor was a great title for him. I think one of the things that THE ILLUSIONISTS gets right is this concept of having a variety of magicians, a variety of magic, and adding that dash of special lighting and music to make the evening enjoyable. You can remind people that magic is fun, entertaining, and can even be magical at times (more on that later.)

Andrew Basso escaped from a (Houdini) water torture cell. Except for a couple of (pre-built-in) panic moments which were added purely for drama (I'm sure), this was actually very impressive. I liked the build up and I liked the choices in his presentation. Personally, I have always wanted to witness this "illusion/escape" in person and I got that opportunity tonight.

Yu Ho-Chin as The Manipulator was the other highlight for me (apart from Hobson.) He performed two pieces with cards. In the first act, he did card manipulation that was simply elegant and beautiful. At one point after producing several multicolor fans and single cards, he took one card and ripped it lengthwise. One part vanished and then I witnessed the other part magically grow back from the remaining piece. I felt like a kid again seeing magic for the first time. I loved it because I didn't know how he did it and it looked magical. Thank you, Yu. In the second act he closed the show by taking a very common concept in trick decks and doing spectacular things with it. Another brilliant presentation with clever thinking.

Adam Trent also did an interesting piece with technology that looked really great sometimes, but looked a little funky from my seat, slightly stage left, middle of the orchestra. I had to question how this looked to others from their seat. What did people in the balcony and from the mezzanine actually see? He also did an ACR that the audience seemed to love. Honestly, I would give him about a 7/10. I'm not saying I could do better, I'm just being honest. His hands were shaking.

There was a lot, and I mean a lot of audience participation in the show. Probably every other effect required the assistance of somebody for something. We all know that this is just good magic.

I must say that heading into this show, I was a little dubious and skeptical. I was prepared to come away thinking that audiences were not getting their money's worth or perhaps that magic was not represented well... or something else bad. But I'm actually very pleased with what I saw. I feel like this is a good modern day magic show for people to come see. And there might be several reasons one would see this show. Maybe you just want to be entertained. Maybe you want to see some good magic. Maybe you want to see a particular magician. There are lots of good reasons to go see THE ILLUSIONISTS.