talkmagic.co.uk

Another sneak preview of a Mainly Mental blogpost. This is something I drafted a while ago, but for some reason never got round to posting. Although the subject matter is getting a little dusty, the issues remain fresh.

Bullet Catch was a show that Rob Drummond put together and performed at the 2012 Edinburgh Festival. It played in the small downstairs theatre at the Traverse and received great reviews, a Herald Angel Award and a Total Theatre Award. It later played in New York and at the National Theatre in London.

As the title suggests the play takes as its focus point the bullet catch, and in particular a performance that resulted in the death of the magician. Its narrative blends fact with fiction. At one point the ill-fated performer receives a letter from Houdini warning him off doing the trick, but the text of the letter actually comes from a genuine one that Harry Kellar wrote to Houdini:

Now, my dear boy, this is advice from the heart, DON’T TRY THE D—N Bullet Catching…no matter how sure you may feel of its success. There is always the biggest kind of risk that some dog will “job” you. And we can’t afford to lose Houdini. You have enough good stuff to maintain your position at the head of the profession. And you owe it to your friends and your family to cut out all stuff that entails risk of your life. Please, Harry, listen to your old friend Kellar who loves you as his own son and don’t do it.

This, and other aspects of the presentation, strongly suggests that the story Drummond tells is true, which is not the case, but lends the show a mournfulness that is to its credit. The narrative weaves its way through a number of effects, as Drummond tells us both of the magician’s final days leading up to the shooting, and the impact that the shooting had on the participant that squeezed the trigger. This participant is represented on stage by a single volunteer. The journey Drummond and his volunteer go on brings them close together, the relationship building towards the bullet catch that, in fiction left one man dead and another destroyed. Drummond seems intent, in telling this tale, of bringing alive the danger and significance of the catch as it is played out.

In short the show is incredibly powerful and tense. Before the catch is performed, Drummond allows people to leave should they wish to. I believe in most cases people did walk out at this point.

And I’m saying all of this because it is vital to appreciate how good the show is before discussing what I want to discuss.

At one point, about two-thirds of the way through the show, Drummond and his volunteer levitate a table. Afterwards, Drummond talks to audience members about what preference they have for knowing or not knowing how such an illusion works, in essence, whether or not they are comfortable with letting the magic live. He then instructs the audience, if they do not want to know how the illusion is created, to close their eyes.

He then dismantles and packs away the table, showing how it works.

It is a L_______ table.

Now, here are a few things to keep in mind. The audience sizes, both in Edinburgh and, I think, London, were about 300, maximum - no thousands of YouTube secret hunters, these. Not everyone kept their eyes open (though most did). They saw this trick performed within the context of a play and, despite the aluminium attache case the table was packed away in, the early twentieth century trappings of the play masked the modern nature of the table (not that the table is, nor needs to be, particularly high-tech). Also, I would say that the secret of the L_______ table is, in a sense, a trivial one. That is not to say that it isn’t a supremely well designed and made prop, more that the quality of its thinking and execution has to do with hiding what is in reality a mundane method.

Lastly, and no less importantly, I watched the play with an intelligent woman who afterwards, on explaining the workings of the table to her husband, said that the table had a motor in it, and that she didn’t understand the box subtlety beyond showing off. In short, she had not understood what she had seen. I can’t use her as a stand in for the entire lay audience, of course, but I think it serves to show that not everyone who kept their eyes open would have learnt the secret.

Whether or not this matters, is a debate in itself, of course. Oh, and I’ve seen performances of the L_______ table that exposed the table more thoroughly purely through the incompetence of the performer.

But regardless of all these “yes buts” he does in the end expose a marketed prop that is someone else’s intellectual property, and a part of many others’ livelihood. Here is how Drummond himself defends the decision to expose the table, taken from the script book:

This has been a matter of contention amongst some members of the magic community. I accept fully that revealing the secret to a trick not of my own design is ethically fraught. However, the relationship this creates between myself and my audience, the comment on the nature of truth and depression, the moment of melancholic and profound theatre that this action makes possible, convinces me that such an act is justified in a theatre show. And, anyway, they chose to look.

I’m not convinced this is a great argument, personally. The audience choosing to look or otherwise isn’t the issue - the magician guards the empty box for his own sake, not for the sake of his audience. I also don’t feel that, in the moment of exposure, the “comment on the nature of truth and depression” was made loud enough - it was drowned out by the audience’s own curiosity. If, later on, they realise that they have forever lost the wonder of the illusion, I’m not so sure they’d tie it up with the themes of the show.

But here’s the rub, irrespective of my view on Drummond’s argument. He sees the exposure as an element of artistic necessity. I think it’s fair to say that most, if not all of us seek to elevate what we do from craft to artform. Here is a magic show that is presented squarely as an art form, but in doing so kills one of its babies. To use exposure as a leverage for other tricks is by no means strange to Bullet Catch. Some areas of card magic, for instance, pretty much rely on it - any card magician that incorporates gambling demonstrations, for example. Drummond no doubt feels he is right in the decision he has made, but without any legal backstop preventing exposure (a backstop the existence of which I don’t think I or many people would be entirely comfortable with), how does one reach that decision? At what point is the lasting effects of exposure less important than the impact of the theatrical moment of that exposure?

For what it is worth, it would be difficult to watch that particular levitating table and not know the secret.

Leaving that aside, I have no great problem with exposure in this context - though I don't know that it is necessary.

I disagree, when done with subtlety Its a beautiful illusion. Its not the worse kind of exposure but I think its crass to think his vision of art can trump Losanders intellectual rights. I am aware that Losander didn't invent the floating table. However his version of it is the best and well known.

I don't want to steer this thread off on a yes he should/no he shouldn't track but at Blackpool this year the chap on the Losander stand demoed the latest addition to the range, the levitating/floating book illusion. Then he showed us all exactly how it worked citing it as 'the usual Losander method' thus tipping the info on the table illusions. OK, the people there were all magicians of one kind or another rather than theatre goers but in all the years I saw Losander demo and sell his tables, he never showed how it was done, those who wanted to know needed to spend several hundred pounds and buy a table first! That said, of course YT shows several methods of accomplishing the illusion if people really want to know.

It certainly sounds like a wonderful, original and powerful show. I like the sound of the premise and the structure very much.

I do think the exposure probably crosses an ethical line, for me at least. But I also accept it must create a unique and fascinating moment - offering the audience a chance to peek behind the curtain (or choose not to), which surely introduces an unusual and exciting dynamic to the show.

Does this justify the exposure? Rob Drummond obviously thinks so. I'm not sure I agree. It would be completely different if it was HIS own effect he chose to expose, but to do it with someone else's method seems unfair.

It does sound like an amazing show though and it's a very interesting question to consider.

I am utterly torn. Certainly one of the best shows I've ever seen, but...

...and I'd rather just one more show like Bullet Catch than a dozen bad performances of the Losander table.

Mr_Grue wrote:Here is how Drummond himself defends the decision to expose the table, taken from the script book:

This has been a matter of contention amongst some members of the magic community. I accept fully that revealing the secret to a trick not of my own design is ethically fraught. However, the relationship this creates between myself and my audience, the comment on the nature of truth and depression, the moment of melancholic and profound theatre that this action makes possible, convinces me that such an act is justified in a theatre show. And, anyway, they chose to look.

I’m not convinced this is a great argument, personally. The audience choosing to look or otherwise isn’t the issue - the magician guards the empty box for his own sake, not for the sake of his audience. I also don’t feel that, in the moment of exposure, the “comment on the nature of truth and depression” was made loud enough - it was drowned out by the audience’s own curiosity. If, later on, they realise that they have forever lost the wonder of the illusion, I’m not so sure they’d tie it up with the themes of the show.

It sounds rather self-serving to me and, if this is the genuine reason for the exposure, I think he is kidding himself. I don't think this for quite the same reason you do. It's just a magic trick. Revealing the working says nothing of truth or depression, irrespective of the background noise. Even if the audience truly felt a moment of wonder, all you have done is spoiled that moment and undone your own artistry, in order to make a weak (if not non-existent) point. There's a reason Puck's closing speech (or Prospero's) isn't given by Laertes at the end of Hamlet. Hey, no one's dead really, this is just a bunch of sad events, or something, and they aren't even real, didn't you get the bit about the play the court saw - it was in a freakin' play you were watching!

I would argue that the alleged comment on truth and depression would make more sense in the context of a magic show, than in a play (which sounds pretty interesting).

But here’s the rub, irrespective of my view on Drummond’s argument. He sees the exposure as an element of artistic necessity.

He claims he does. It might be true, of course and, even if it is true, it is not necessarily correct!

When Magritte told you that the picture of a pip was not a pipe, you can consider what that means. Is it a lie? Is it just a silly joke? Is it an observation that indeed, it is not a pipe, because it is a picture of a pipe? Is it an even deeper comment on perception and reality? In an art gallery you can (if you wish) think about these things. You might ponder it afterwards. The paradox is clear, and challenging (should you so choose).

Showing how a magic trick works is just satifying curiosity and/or disappointing the audience. That is not the same as commenting upon the nature of disappointment. You could eke out an argument that, should someone analyse the performance later, they might reflect on their wonder, the loss of that wonder and how this could be an analogy for other things in life that are not as real as first thought, perhaps a loss of innocence. Personally, I think it is a step too far and that realistically no one will ponder this (who hasn't been asked to write about the show for their degree or a Fringe newspaper...). I am not even sure what greater truth you could get to through this. Yeah, sometimes things aren't as good as they first seem. Sometimes people lie to you.

Maybe I could come up with something if I had to write an essay on it.

I suppose there is a dramatically interesting moment of tension when people are asked to decide whether to look or not, but I agree with MatCult that someone else's marketed trick is not the right way to do it. I didn't see the play, but my gut reaction to the description is that this moment probably took more away from the play than it could have added.