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by **Trevor Roll** » Oct 20th, '10, 10:15

I really would NOT recommend artaud, brecht and stan text books to a magician that wants to be a better actor.

Yes, they are all on the a-level theatre studies required reading list, but they are very technical and won't actually teach much to a total newb. Bit like suggesting someone that wants to learn card magic gets an XCM DVD.

I would find a local Am Dram society and ask there if there is a director, or trainee director that would help you. Don't just join and hope to learn as they are not acting schools.

by **phillipnorthfield** » Oct 20th, '10, 12:54

SamGurney wrote:Never underestimate acting. I cannot stand hammy acting. Plus, don't think you have to reinvent the wheel; there is an entire field related to theatrical meaningful performance studies- drama and theatre. Obviously nobody has all the answers which everyone agrees with as to how performance should work and that's part of the journey, thinking and learning for yourself. For this end then, I could reccomend definitely:

-Stanislavski 'An actor's work' (A single volume which contains 'An actor prepares' and 'Building a character' I think you can get it off Amazon)- The master of the 'naturalist' school of acting- perfect for magic, in my opinion. Elementary text on acting theory.

-'Brecht on theatre' again, easy to get hold of, some great thoughts contained within. Elementary text.

-'Theatre and its double' by Antonin Artaud. Again, one of the pioneers of modern theatre and the 'theatre of cruelty'; elementary reading on theatre.

Well... as a matter of fact, there are many, many books in this field that I could reccomend, but whats all this about finding stuff out for yourself? But look up some key people like Bertold Brecht, Artaud, Peter Brook e.t.c. and just have a google about these things if you're not prepared to invest time and money in books. Thinking about theatre will help you answer the questions about 'what should performance mean? What is it's role? How should it work?' and developing your artistic vision for Magic. All the greats have done this, not all explicitly through thinking about theatre (although in the earlier days of 'modern' magic I believe this to be so) but in some respect they all have- Tommy Wonder being the perfect example.

Of course though, there are some magic related texts. Darwin Ortiz' 'Strong Magic' has been reccomended, as has Juan Tamariz (I would probably reccomend getting every single thing you can find of Tamariz, but thats probably not very helpful) both of which are perfect examples. Nelms' 'Magic and Showmanship' would be quite an accessable and easy to get hold of book, too. Nelms, as I psychically predict Mark Lewis will back me up on, did not actually perform magic or prepare magic shows, but, he was a theatre director and if you know anything about theatre and acting it is incredibly obvious throughout the book. The insight is in how the book relates to Magic.

Finally, it will take 'time and experience'. But there may not be millions of books strictly related to magic/ mentalism performance philosophy (Possibly because there is no correct 'answer' per se) however, once you get used to magic literature you will find that authors tend to write their performance philosophy in there somewhere and offer advice on performance all over the place, which you will pick up as you go along. For example, if you know the age old classics of Harlan Tarbell's contributions to magic*, there is not a set section on 'this is how you should perform' which gives all his advice and the rest are just packet tricks... absolutley not! Performance advice rears it's head on every single page, every trick and every interlude and digression. To give another example, take 'Expert Card Technique'. By title you may assume that it is not performance philosophy related, but as will all good magic books there is performance advice given all over the place and in this particular book, a chapter devoted entirley to presentation which is worth the books value on its own.

So- read around... think... stick with it... and time, hard work and origionality always pay.

* If you don't, you really should! What Euclid is to Geometry (In fact, there are '13 books' to Euclid and the term 'Royal road' was first used by Alexander the great- I think- in reference to this this work!), the 13 steps is to mentalism, RRTCM is to card performance... the Tarbell course is to magic.

EDIT: I forgot to mention being entertaining. Perhaps the most glossed over aspect of performance theory. If you can't be entertaining, unless you are selling yourself as Jesus, there is no point in doing magic.

Yes, Yes, and one more Yes!

Method Acting is in my opinion THE most useful thing you can work on for presentation. It is so natural, and makes so much sense. Standard acting techniques look like... well acting, unless you can pull them off. In which case why are you doing magic instead of filmmaking?

Problem with method acting is that sometimes it can be too convincing!

by **Trevor Roll** » Oct 20th, '10, 13:47

phillipnorthfield wrote:
Method Acting is in my opinion THE most useful thing you can work on for presentation. It is so natural, and makes so much sense.

Problem with method acting is that sometimes it can be too convincing!

It really isn't at all natural. By definition, it is the opposite of natural.

Method Acting was Lee Strasbourg's interpretation of the first of a series of three books Stanislavski wrote. The other two were not made available to Lee and he decided to write his own book based on just one third of what Stanislavski meant. He missed the point dreadfully.

This resulted in a horrible school of acting that is ridiculous. OK, I admit there are a few actors that have turned in good performances using this 1/3 of a technique, but it is the exception to the rule.

Just my opinion!

by **phillipnorthfield** » Oct 20th, '10, 13:52

With everything you obviously have to take it with a pinch of salt, and tak out what works for you, but I still think that it works and is much easier to incorporate than standard acting, which can look a bit fake, especially when just starting out.

What is undoubtedly is the most important thing though, has to be confidence, being confident about what you are doing (not arrogant) is a great way of giving a better performance.

by **Trevor Roll** » Oct 20th, '10, 14:56

phillipnorthfield wrote:With everything you obviously have to take it with a pinch of salt, and tak out what works for you, but I still think that it works and is much easier to incorporate than standard acting, which can look a bit fake, especially when just starting out.

Do you know how many actors really use the Strasbourg method nowadays? Hardly any. Is it possible you are confusing his bastardisation of Stanislavski's technique with something else?

There really is no way anyone in theatre would recommend the method for people new to acting. Especially a magician wanting to become a better magician.

Working on more basic theatrical skills such as breathe, voice, blocking, pacing, reactions etc would be where I would start. Go on to character development, and then character acting when the very basics have been absorbed.

For the OP:

Here is a great little article about how to make your character more believable.

http://ezinearticles.com/?Acting---Maki ... &id=216903

And here is one on the basics of acting:

http://www.associatedcontent.com/articl ... html?cat=2

by **SamGurney** » Oct 20th, '10, 19:36

As a side note, I did just remember that the 13 steps has a fascinating interview with Claude Chandler at the very back which explains some basics of acting breathing techniques and he gives some advice on getting into acting. It was essentially: 'do some research- it is crucial to being a good performer'. I don't actually ever remember saying 'don't do that, read only these books instead'- I just named some which I think stand as classics... (and I have no time for a level drama Anyhow). These days there are numerous drama clubs and groups which are very easy to get involved in if you are that dedicated and enthusiastic. Just to add to that, the final 13th chapter in itself was worth the money I payed for the book itself- which is so cheap compared to the quality of its contents there is no excuse not to own it!!

Stanislavski's 'method' was known as 'The system' because it was a congruent and complete ideology of acting. Nonetheless, I could still reccomend reading his thoughts on behaving naturally, something magicians show themselves time and time again utterly incapable of doing. It's all about the 'magic if' and 'given circumstances' of the effect, he would say; and this philosophy holds true for considering how you should present an effect. There are some fascinating but sometimes tenuous links to NLP if you look for them, just for those who were interested.

However, these things are always best heard from the origional source. It is very fashionable to dismiss psychoanalysis or deface Freud's work without having actually heard the ideas he actually did propagate straight from his own mouth. So without getting too tangled in names and definitions, I would still reccomend reading Stanislavski's own words on his own philosophy, not Strasbourg's.

I do like the story Stanislavski was reported to have told by the diarist, where he apparantly used to play games with his neice and they played a game where they had to pretend that the seat he was sitting on was a stove. Sometimes he got too involved with the acting and his niece used to cry because it looked too real and stopped being comic. Its quite sadistic, but still one of my favourite stories about him.

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