Before The Magician’s Assistant Course - Part 3 - First Rehearsal
The time before the following Wednesday passed prosaically enough, the attention of the office gossip turned to Miss Sharp, who revealed she was pregnant, which was a surprise to all of us as she had not spoken of a steady boyfriend and we were pretty sure that she was not the kind of woman to sleep with anyone who asked. Her manner said that she was happy with the prospect.
Wednesday rolled round. I cycled to Jack’s place. When I got there I knocked on the shutter-door. He opened the normal door beside it and invited me in. He seemed compelled to give me a tour of the whole place; it was bigger than I thought. The workshop area was almost the same floor area as the living/rehearsal area/office I had already seen and looked like a tidier version of any workshop I had ever seen on TV. Then there was the materials store cluttered with wood and metal and fixings of all sorts and many bolts of cloth. And finally there was the prop store which seemed to be as large as the living area and on two floors. The stuff near the front was mostly familiar to me as an ardent fan of magic, but I glimpsed things towards the back that did not ring the faintest of bells.
When we got back to the living area, Jack made coffee. He asked whether I had a preferred drink so that he could get some in for me, as I was going to become a regular visitor. I told him that coffee was fine, but when the weather got hotter, I might prefer orange juice or lemon squash.
We sat and talked about our weeks since our lunch together. I did not have much to say, because there is not a lot of interest to say about office work and I felt sure he would not be interested in Miss Sharp’s impending pregnancy. He told me about the shows he had put on in nearby towns, mostly private or corporate functions; I got the impression that he had stuck to the more standard illusions, rather than being particularly innovative.
We finished our coffees together. He said that by Sunday he would have the contract ready and he would have the brochure for the magician’s assistant’s course.
“Are we going to do some magic?” I asked. “While I appreciate the tour and the coffee and the catch-up, I thought this was supposed to be rehearsal time; what’s a rehearsal without rehearsing?”
“Well, there’s two things about that. The most obvious is we don’t have anything to rehearse,” he said. “I can’t plan anything until I get to know you better and find out what you like doing (I mean performance-wise) and what illusions you like doing. This is because if you just do the usual stuff in the usual way, why would anyone prefer you to the next magic act? What we need is a U.S.P.”
“A what?” I asked. (I’m an office manager, not a business guru)
“A Unique Selling Point. Something that makes us stand out from the rest.” He paused, trying to gather his thoughts. “What we need is to put together an act that instead of getting a response like, ‘we saw a magic show last night, it was good’, gets the public really talking; ‘We went to see Jack and Abi last night and they were fantastic, they did this thing where…’”
“You mean doing magic is not enough?”
“Exactly, there needs to be some performance to the magic and some point to it too; otherwise we might as well be demonstrating illusion boxes, which would be boring, for both us and the audience. And let’s face it, even illusionists can fake the magic, while we magicians are trying to hide the magic behind the illusion.”
“So, you’re talking about thinking up some sort of signature illusion and developing a style that fits with the way we want to perform?”
“Bang on, Abi.”
“Then why aren’t we trying out everything you’ve got to see what works for us? If I don’t know everything you can do to me with the devices in the store rooms, how will I know what I like or be able to suggest other stuff or different angles? All I know at the moment is I like everything I’ve tried and few minor caveats with them; like don’t do the compression unless you’re able to go to the loo pretty soon after and don’t use too many metal swords.”
“The main reason for not trying everything is the second reason for not doing much magic yet.”
“And that would be?” I said pointedly.
“They advise against using much magic on assistants before the course, because it would muck up their methods of determining how good an assistant you are.”
“I don’t get it. I thought you said that as an assistant type person, I could take as much magic as you could throw at me and then some.”
“Well, yes, but I’m not a complete expert on the subject and I simplified the explanation.”
“You lied to me?”
“No, I simplified. There are the five basic type of people, but the ‘Normals’ have a wide range of magical tolerance. Most magician’s assistants are high tolerance Normals, including most of the people you will meet on your course. On your course they will measure your magical tolerance and it will be on your certificate. It’s measured in ‘Thaums per day’.”
“What kind of dumb unit is that?”
“I guess it does sound dumb without any background, but it isn’t meant to sound good, it’s meant to be a practical guide to the magician about how much magic he can use on an assistant without harming her in the short- or long-term.”
“Ok, now we’re discussing it, give me the background; tell me how it works. And how you know that I’m an ‘Assistant’ not just a high-tolerance ‘Normal’?”
“Well,” he began, “the ‘Thaum’ is a simple unit of measure for the amount of magic needed to do a particular thing. It is short for ‘Thaumaturgical Unit’. Disappearing someone takes a couple of Thaums, for instance. One of my friends from college was into this kind of detail and did some computer stuff, so he wrote an app for calculating how many Thaums you would put into your assistant if you did a particular set of illusions on her. I gather it’s very complicated, but, for example, the basic twister illusion is rated at about eight to ten Thaums, as most of the good ‘Normal’ Assistants can only cope with the low thirties Thaums per day, you begin to see why most famous magicians have a lot of assistants.”
“So, how many ‘Thaums’ did you use on me last weekend?”
“I don’t know, the app wasn’t able to do the calculation, because the magic was too far from the normal. Calculating the Thaumage for the sword box might have been simple (about half a Thaum per spike or sword), except we never counted the number of swords. But I’d guess that even if you had been a ‘Normal’ with a very high tolerance for magic we’d have used more than a several day’s worth capacity in that single illusion, and you’d be feeling far worse effects than nocturnal knife throwing.”
“I guess that’s why the spiker is performed like it is; disappearing and re-appearing the assistant only costs a few Thaums, while running her through with a dozen spikes costs something around 6.”
“I’d never thought of it that way and you’re right, but that’s not the only reason.” I gave him a look that requested further explanation and got it. “Mostly it’s done that way, because it emulates the illusionist’s spiker illusion and they don’t have the luxury of being able to have the assistant remain in the box with the spikes. And then there’s the audience to consider; they don’t want to actually see the assistant with spikes through her. The audience don’t want to see anyone killed or maimed, they want to be entertained with a bit of controlled danger.”
“I get that the audience don’t really want people injured or worse, but I don’t see what’s ‘Controlled Danger’ about sawing someone in half?”
“That’s not controlled danger that's an apparent physical impossibility, which is the other thing they seem to like. They know it’s fake (or think they do), but like to see something they think is impossible and some gauge the quality by the impossibility and if they can work out how it might be done.”
“So is there anything else a show should contain, to be satisfying, besides controlled danger, physical impossibilities and some sort of point?”
“Well there’s got be some skill, which is what most of the sleight of hand is about, because having seen some of these things performed on just about anybody, most people know that most of the big tricks can be performed with a minimum amount of training. And, of course, there’s got to be some showmanship, because without that even the most impossible thing can seem dull.”
“Well, you’ve given me a lot to think about. I guess there’s not much to do except think on it, until Sunday.”
I took my leave and cycled home to sleep on all I had seen and learnt. At that point I had no ideas for any of the elements that could make up a show; theme, style, or what illusions might be included. I also wondered if there was really much point in turning up to rehearsals with no magic to rehearse or try out.