Here’s the Answer, No Matter What They Say on The Magic Cafe
Not every actor is a screenwriter, and we don’t expect them to be. Why should magic be any different? If the “script” is good, what’s wrong with a magician following it?
What brought this on? In the recent past I got incensed reading a topic on TMC (yes, I should know better than to doomscroll over there).
Basically, someone pointed to a video where a magician did John Archer’s Magic Square “word for word” and many people had a cow. *GASP!*
In general, a lot people had the feeling that maybe it’s okay for a beginner to do that, but if you don’t create your own presentation at some point then you’re a hack.
But…
Nobody ever says, “If you don’t create your own method you’re a hack.” Wonder why?*
Not everybody is skilled at writing dialog, but may be a very good performer. Should they just give up magic and take up knitting?
Ever been to a play? The actors (in general) are NOT allowed to change the wording — they learn the script and perform it the same way for the run of the play. Hacks?
My Own Presentation (That Wasn’t)
I learned a 3-ball juggling routine from a book when I was 15 and over the next decade performed it literally hundreds of times. It morphed over time to become my own thing. Except… at some point a couple decades later I came across the original book and decided to see just how far I’d deviated and was shocked (yes, actually shocked) to discover that what felt like my own creation, a routine that was perfectly ME inside and out, was almost 100% word-for-word what was written in the book.
It was so ingrained in me it felt like I must have changed it to fit me, I must have added different jokes, moved things around, etc. Nope, I was a carbon copy of the routine in the book. But there’s no way you’d have seen me perform that and thought I was doing someone else’s material. If the material is good and you can deliver it as if it’s “yours” then why isn’t that okay?
When Your Own Presentation Is Good To Have
I think it’s probably better if you have routines that are specific to you — but that’s from a standpoint of getting booked and standing out from others. In general, if you buy a trick with a good presentation, and you want to do it word for word, and you can make it feel like it’s yours, then go for it. I think the chances of anyone (lay people) seeing two magicians perform the exact same trick are miniscule. (Unless it’s freakin’ ACAAN, because everybody seems to do that one.) Which then means that even my first sentence in this paragraph isn’t all that important in places where it’s not wall-to-wall magicians — or when you’re not being seen by a TV audience, ala AGT.**
You and I may have seen dozens of performances of the Invisible Deck (because we’re magic geeks), but for the average person on the street, that number will be ZERO. If they ever do see it, they have no clue whether the presentation is original or not — they will only know if it’s entertaining or not. I think that creating new presentations is great fun, but not everyone is good at that. Which means they could end up making an effect LESS entertaining than if they’d followed the original presentation.
The Moral of the Story
If you bought a routine and want to present it the way the instructions say, go for it.
And if you want to create a new presentation that fits you to a T — even better!
* I think most would say, “Because people don’t see the method (with enough practice) so that won’t affect how they see the performance.” While true, since most people won’t see two different people do *any* specific trick, neither the method nor the presentation matter to the audience.
** If you’re going on a TV show you probably want to do effects/presentations that are fairly unique to you.
