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I sometimes also induce my Magical Character by downing a few cans lol

*I am not promoting excessive alcoholic consumption, I cannot be held liable for this comment..

I wouldn't disagree, per se, with the advice previously given, but I would modify it. The problem with "being yourself" as a blanket plan is that often we have aspects of our personalities that are seemingly inconsistent. For example, I can be extremely introverted at times, but also extroverted at other times. In your original post, similarly, you list yourself as "serious" and "funny." Not that one cannot be simultaneously serious and funny, but generally we think of those as opposing personality traits.

People in our personal lives have lots of time to get to know us and reconcile our apparent contradictions; however, when performing for strangers, you don't have the luxury of enough time to allow people to realize and appreciate your diversity of character. My problem with "be yourself" isn't that you should be someone else, but rather that you shouldn't be your "entire" self; instead, I believe that your performing persona (character) should be "yourself," but not ALL of yourself; instead, you should choose which aspects of your personality you wish to emphasize.

One of my favorite magicians is Whit Haydn, who recently completely changed his performing character (perhaps "introduced a new character" is a better way of saying it). His new character is a southern, slow-drawling, riverboat gambler type, very different from his persona just a few years ago. Whit is one of the most thorough thinkers about magic theory, philosophy, and presentation.

Now, if Whit was "being himself," how is a change of character even possible? If you're "yourself" in one performance, and you're "yourself" in the next performance, then there shouldn't be a change. One possibility is that Whit is (or was) NOT "being himself" in one of the two performances. However, that explanation is not the case. Both personas of Whit are completely genuine. The second possibility (and the accurate one) is that Whit has many, many facets. He was born and raised in the south; he also lived in New York City (about as far from the American south as one can get, culturally). He worked the streets of New York doing 3-card monte; he also studied philosophy at the university. What happened is this, Whit chose WHICH "himself" to be during his performances, and committed to presenting THAT "character" as convincingly as he could.

Dai Vernon said "Confusion isn't magic." With respect to the presentation of an effect, that seems obvious; however, I would contend that the observation also holds true with respect to character and performing persona. If an audience doesn't know what to make of you (and 20-40 minutes isn't really enough time to sort out a multi-faceted personality), that will detract from their experience of your presentation. Think of your favorite magicians; my guess would be that they have a very consistent performing persona, and one that is fairly limited. I am also reminded of meeting Bill Malone recently when he was just hanging out at Hollywood's Magic Castle. We sat in the bar for about 15-20 minutes just talking about magic and life. He was very low key, mellow, etc. Now, anyone who has seen Bill perform, whether live or on his "On the Loose" DVDs, knows that Bill's performing character is extremely manic...fast paced, etc. Does my experience meeting him suggest that he is not "being himself" in his performances? Certainly not. Most of us have a wide variety of personality traits. Bill has simply decided how he wants his working audience to see him; meeting him outside the context, one can certainly find another (presumably MANY other, if I had spent more time with him) aspects of his personality.

I interact differently with family, law firm work associates, and my friends with whom I go to Iron Maiden and Black Sabbath concerts. In none of those interactions am I not "being myself." For example, I am very informal with my friends; however, I wouldn't go to work in jeans and T-shirts, and say to an attorney or a client I was just meeting "What's up!?" Even though that would be perfectly acceptable in other contexts or with other people; conversely, I don't go to concerts in suits & ties.

As far as "being yourself" means "don't be someone else," I agree with it. But I believe that it will be most useful to your magic, from the perspective of creating consistency and focus, if you choose a narrow part of "yourself" to present to your audiences, and concentrate on being as true as possible to THAT "yourself."

Excellent post, LobowolfXXX (and welcome to the forum). You actually reflected my thinking on the subject better than I did in my post!

Thanks, P-T, on both counts. On the other hand, you were a lot less verbose and got across the single most important point...if they dislike YOU, you don't stand a chance!

You abbreviated my username and used the hyphen - you're going to go far!

Trust me, I can be pretty verbose at times (if you have the misfortune to read one of my reviews, you'll understand).