The True Magic

Live magic has a lot of hurdles to climb these days.

Most of the tricks, in some form or another, have been revealed on those horrible Fox TV shows where blabbermouth disgruntled magicians show exactly how they are done and destroy any sense of wonder you might otherwise enjoy from the show. For the most part, it seems as though the magicians are doing the same tricks over and over anyway; they're always pulling something out of a hat, or messing around with linked rings, or making themselves or an assistant disappear or playing with colored handkerchiefs. It's also a very antiquated form of entertainment. In this age of YouTube and Facebook and Bluetooth, a show comprised largely of sleight of hand illusions and mirror misdirection is really fighting an uphill battle to hold an audience's attention. The two Davids (Copperfield and Blaine) notwithstanding, the artform hasn't evolved significantly in over a hundred years. If kids today are even capable of marvelling at anything, it's more likely to be at the newest development in CGI technology to supplement their virtual video game or effects laden Hollywood release. The guys with the tuxedos and rabbits and doves probably seem, forgive the horrible pun, hopelessly old hat to them by now.

Despite these daunting odds, I saw a live magic show this weekend and really enjoyed it.

There were essentially two acts, with the host of the program putting in a cameo appearance about halfway through as a "visiting Russian czar/magician". The first act was a young fellow who couldn't have been over the age of 30 who utilized modern music to supplement a razzle dazzle show with disappearing doves, light effects and sleight of hand illusions. The second, a more seasoned prestidigitator, worked mainly with handkerchiefs, bottles and linking rings, and his performance also incorporated music, albeit from a somewhat earlier era. There was, to be honest, nothing groundbreaking or "envelope pushing" about the show. I had seen these tricks, or ones very much like them, many other times in my life. The show was short, clocking in at just under an hour and a quarter, and at $25, it wasn't particularly cheap, either.

And it worked for me.

The show was a terrific touchstone to the great and often unappreciated history of live entertainment, featuring acts that did something that no CGI effects, no well edited motion picture, no slickly produced television show or intensely marketed video game could do. It connected the performers (and the performances) with the audience, and accented humanity over technology. There weren't any laser effects, or explosions or deaths or envelope pushing technology of any sort, but what there WAS was several flesh and blood human beings onstage by themselves, just a few feet separating them from a crowd that was no doubt scanning for any and all signs of fakery, and just pure nerve and bravado backing up their skill and practice. That type of "seat of the pants" dynamic is almost unheard of today. Even live musical performances sometimes feature lipsyncing, and in general the audiences at those performances are further away from the performers and aren't made a part of the show.

The interaction of the performers with the audience also helped to foster this "human touch" as well. Several audience members were recruited by the magicians to assist in various tricks, and each time the audience connected not only with the performers but with the "recruits" as well. After the show, the performers waited outside the theatre exit to shake hands with the audience members and chat with them. People interacting with people; it seems obvious and a bit corny, but that type of shared community experience has a unique value in a society. For all the wonderful advances of science, it has not and never will be able to replace the eternally nourishing phenomenon of people growing stronger and closer because of events that remind them of their common bonds. This can be a dramatic event, a crisis like severe weather or national crisis like 9/11, or it can be on a much smaller scale, a community coming together to celebrate a holiday or a wedding, or even a magic show.

We are all understandably thankful for the marvelous advances and freedoms that technology has wrought in our society. No longer do we have to be restricted to one television set that only has four or five channels and is only on the air for eight hours a day. We can all accumulate massive collections of our favorite songs and listen to them at our leisure. Very recent Hollywood releases can now be viewed at home within a few short month of their theatrical premieres, and you can watch them whenever and largely, wherever you want. All of these advances have been tremendously beneficial in allowing for freedom of personal choice and access to entertainment material. Our entertainment choices are truly at our fingertips today, and in many ways that's a positive development.

Such advances have also had the unfortunate effect of making us much more isolated from each other, less in touch with the community of human beings around us, not only locally, but nationally and moreover, worldwide. If you have your own television set and iPod and iPhone, you're much less likely to have to compromise on what content to enjoy and less likely indeed to even experience entertainment with other people.

Live entertainment renews that lost sense of community by drawing together large groups of people and allowing them to share a good time, to move through an experience as a whole. It puts us in close contact with performers and forces us to appreciate the time, energy and skill they put into their acts. It fosters conversation, interaction and just a general sense of belonging that can never be equalled by entertainment that can be experienced alone.

While we can and should appreciate all the modern marvels of technology, timeless entertainment like live magic is a wonderful place to revisit as often as possible. Besides giving us something different to pass the time and putting us in touch with the long history of similar live entertainment, it keeps us all in touch entertainment's most important purpose, the joy of being alive, of being human, and the wonderful comfort that comes from sharing that feeling with others.