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landmark Inner circle within a triangle 5194 Posts |
From where I sit, part of the problem in these kinds of conversations is that theater people and some magicians have different vocabulary for the same concept.
In particular, the concept that causes the most confusion for the two groups is the word "acting." So let me try to clarify: what some magicians call "not acting," is what theater people call "acting." This is not a typo. That is, the ability to achieve verisimilitude in a performing situation. My training is as an actor, so I resonate more with explanations such as Jon's above. I would describe Al Schneider's explanation that he just opens his hand because that is what a magician would do as absolutely correct--for his character. His character is a plain spoken man, perhaps an engineer in another life, and anything fancy in revealing a coin would be out of character, indeed bad acting. But other characters would open their hands in other ways, dependent on a) their character, b) the cause of the vanish, and c) To whom and why they were showing this phenomenon. Now many in this thread and elsewhere talk about the mechanics of the opening the hand rather that the three items I talked about in the last sentence. That's fine. In the theater world, we famously have two kinds of actors--those who work from the inside and those who work from the outside. Actors like Dustin Hoffman are primarily inside actors--they start with the character's psychological state and background and work from there; actors like Olivier are primarily outside actors--they start with a physical characteristic of the character, say, what does the nose look like in Olivier's case, and create a character from that. Now, in the theater, it is generally recognized that a) either way, the inside or the outside is a legitimate way to start; but b) neither in itself is complete, but must lead to the other for a complete experience of verismilitude. Is it the same in magic? I'm not experienced enough to know.
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Lawrence O Inner circle French Riviera 6811 Posts |
Landmark, this inside or outside acting is a very interesting reminder. But your three points [a) their character, b) the cause of the vanish, and c) To whom and why they were showing this phenomenon] appear to me as essential with magic which is somehow a dialogue concealing as much as possible the "demonstration" aspect that forms the topic of the dialogue. The whole aim is to reach at people.
Magic is the art of emotionally sharing live impossible situations
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