I don't know... I'm on the fence with this one. Over the course of the past few months I've thought about the presentation of magic. I've seen videos of people take the entire "story" way too far. If you look at Wayne's performances they are so simple. They're not over embellished like any ol' Criss Angel stuff.
It also really depends what kind of magic you're into. This is my personal opinion but I see Street Magic as something like guerrilla filmmaking. Getting in and getting out (that's what she said). Your main goal is to amaze, entertain, and impress. I don't think it matters whether you tell a story or not. If you do, all the better for you. If you don't, then so be it! If you can engage an audience in whatever way that is best suitable for YOU then you're successful. But the trick is finding what is right for you.
Mitch
Cheap shot comparing Wayne to Criss, on any front. Currently, Criss has hammed it up so bad that no presentation in the world will save him.
And, okay, you don't need, like, some storybook fable to accompany your magic. Get too heavy-handed with that, and it will bore the audience to tears. Even bizarre magick, which has a heavier emphasis on theater and storytelling an drama, needs to know its limits. It all has to work hand in hand.
I think instead of story, we're talking about "well-thought out, meaningful presentation and scripting, delivered in-context", which we'll abbreviate to "the good stuff" for short, because who in the world thinks that stuff is bad, even if you don't do it?
If you're going out there, and your purpose is to entertain people, that's great, good for you. I don't think anyone here is against that. Magic, like acting, is meant to be shared before an audience, whatever the size. What we're going for is a presentation that
a) can connect to the audience on some level,
b) is interesting, engaging, and maybe even beautiful when attached to you, even without the magic,
and c) has logic and purpose behind it.
It's really not that hard once you try! I can't see what the objection is to making your magic a bit more relevant and meaningful. You don't lose anything by doing so. And you don't have to throw away all your favorite tricks, you just need to find ways to make them make sense.
In one of Derren Brown's book (I mention him a lot because I think he's dreamy), he quotes some of his conversations with Teller, of Penn & Teller fame. Teller says that magic is theater, and most magicians play the role of a god-being, who can just snap his fingers and his will is law (sometimes literally). The card comes to the top because you say it does. The coin bends because you want it to. Stuff like that. And that's just boring! Nobody would watch that play. It's all eye-candy. It's like a really horrible action movie with tons of explosions and nude scenes and fighting, and sure it might be a treat for the eyes, but is there any substance to it? Or do you just scoff and instead buy a ticket for a movie that actually looks, you know, good?
Teller didn't add that last part about the movie, I did. Sorry if there was any confusion. But what Teller DOES go onto to say is that there's no drama or conflict in a god-being. We know the magician will win, and we start to lose interest. All that you can offer an audience is, "My deck of cards will do something cool," and that might be a treat for the eyes and get you some applause, but wouldn't it be
so much better if instead of freaking out and screaming, the audience stared in rapt attention, smiled, showed any emotion really, because the cards you're holding did something that meant something to them?
When you tear a card up and then put it back together, I mean, why? Just to show off? Who does that? I can do that with some duct tape, I don't
care. I can just buy a new deck for that matter! Instead, look at David Copperfield tearing up that super-rare autographed baseball card worth millions in front of people who cringed just at having him get smudgy fingerprints on it. When he tears it up, they go through fear, a little anger, remorse, tension - and then step by step, as it's magically united, then good god that is amazing! That means something to them! They don't care if you do that to the two of clubs, but THIS card is actually important! (if you're asking, "Well what's his motivation for doing that?" You'd have to ask him, but just off the top of my head, I think it's sort of a smirky, smug lesson in the value of the things we love, but that's just my guess.)
Another example! In Caleb Strange's Garden of the Strange, which is like the Tarbell of presentation ideas, he does a Triumph routine. But this one is not only beautiful, it can make your audience cry. It will remind them of someone they love, and when they clap at the end and laugh, it's not to be polite, it's because it meant something. How does he do it?
Think about a way to do that.
Or don't, I don't care.
Give up?
He uses photographs instead of cards. He does the whole Triumph routine which pictures of an elderly woman at different stages of her life. Caleb tells you how the woman, from her deathbed, looked back upon her life, and all the memories came flooding back to her - and he riffles the cards, and it's like her life in fast motion, flashing before her eyes. And when the cards magically right themselves, a single card is left - the woman says she will Play the Film Backwards, and she goes from her deathbed back through life until she is an infinite cosmic nothing, both there and not there, existing yet not existing.
He gets that from a
Triumph routine. Any Triumph routine you're familiar with! All he does is change the props. And you don't have to get all heavy like that, with that kind of story, but you should try to find something. Some way to make what you're doing make sense. Why not take an extra few days to write your thoughts out and flesh out your magic a little more?
What do you have to lose?
) behind the tricks that we perform.
