Bash­ing Al Schneider

In the past weeks I worked hard get­ting through Al Schneider­’s monu­ment­al ‘The The­ory and Prac­tice of Magic Decep­tion’. Amaz­ing work, quite a lot to swal­low. Heavy stuff.

Then, some guys poin­ted out to me that Schneider is a ‘low-key’ per­former, lack­ing esprit and pizza­zz. Well, maybe true to some point, but then he nev­er stated being the enter­tain­ment beast nor that ‘con­sum­mate professional’.

But take a look at how clean he per­forms all of his moves and how incred­ibly con­vin­cing the routines look. No wasted and unne­ces­sary moves or com­plic­ated hand­ling. To prove, here is a clip of his cups and balls routine:

Everything he does is con­gru­ent with his the­ory on how vir­tu­al magic should look like and why.

It is not a mat­ter of point­ing out the seem­ingly lack­ing ‘enter­tain­ment’ in his work. Too many ‘seasoned per­formers’ doing flip­pant and unes­sen­tial pat­ter, gags and present­a­tions, deceiv­ing them­selves into think­ing this is com­mer­cial magic.

Bet­ter to absorb Schneider­’s the­or­ies and think about it ser­i­ously. Then to con­vert them to one’s own routines and rep­er­toire. More than enough work to keep us busy for a long time …