Table Magic Theatre

I remem­ber well when about 18 years ago, I wan­ted to open a small theatre of my own, where close-up magic was per­for­med evening after evening.

A few years later I was hel­ping a fel­low magi­cian with his show and I sug­gested per­forming close-up magic at a round table, with the spec­ta­tors sit­ting around in mul­ti­ple rows, like in an anci­ent Greek open-air theatre. All this, of course, influen­ced by my own ideas and dreams I had for years.

There were reasons for it. I was always obses­sed with the act of Albert Gosh­man. I saw quite a few pic­tures of him per­forming at a round table. Then he said many times, that he did “table-top magic theatre”. That means a com­plete act or show, cho­reo­gra­phed and thea­tri­cally staged, using even music in his per­for­mance pie­ces, per­for­med on a table top. Peo­ple sit­ting right at the table and expe­ri­en­cing the magic right in front of their nose, being actually invol­ved. That’s the idea. And I got sort of fix­a­ted on this. Obses­sed. Albert Goshman’s way of per­forming was the inspi­ra­tion and foun­da­tion for my ideas. He has to get all the cre­dit, for ele­vat­ing close-up table magic into a thea­tri­cal act.

The idea of the Greek theatre, of course, is a clas­sic and his­to­ri­cal one and sug­gested more spec­ta­tors, which all had a good view of the per­forming sur­face (due to the ascen­ding seats). With all that, my idea of per­forming a “round table magic theatre” was born and in fact, we star­ted to build the very first round table with a dia­me­ter of about 2 meters the next day in the work­shop. Covered with green felt and with frin­ges at the edge, it was a rough model, but it worked! We star­ted to rou­tine close-up pie­ces for this spe­cial “stage setting”.

Since then my fri­end ela­bo­ra­ted greatly on this idea and made a huge suc­cess in Ger­many com­mer­ci­ally. His magic lounge is the big­gest and most impres­sive place you will find. It is an enorm­ous enter­prise. As usual in magic, when someone has suc­cess with an novel idea, this is over­ta­ken by other in no time and so we have now in Ger­many quite a lot of these close-up magic thea­tres. Along with this comes a cer­tain way, these thea­tres appar­ently are sup­po­sed to look like. A new trend is up and run­ning full power …

My point gets clea­rer when you study the pic­tures. These are from three suc­cessful thea­tres ope­ra­ting in Ger­many and Switz­er­land. As you can see, these venues are struc­tu­red all almost the same lines: a lounge, a bar and a round (or half-round) table, with spec­ta­tors sea­ted in Greek style, with ascen­ding seats.

What they all have in com­mon is that close-up tricks, which were ori­gi­nally inten­ded for inti­mate per­forming set­tings with a maxi­mum of 8 spec­ta­tors sit­ting right at the table, are now per­for­med for audi­en­ces up to 150 per­sons – actually more a stand-up crowd (but sea­ted in ascen­ding rows). Of course, some­ti­mes video screens are used to enhance the vision for the spec­ta­tors sit­ting farer away, making it more “close-up” and trans­forming close-up hand­made magic into a high-tech spectacle.

Not­hing against the shows and the mate­rial – the guys per­form very well and pre­sent some exci­ting shows for the pay­ing public. All have in com­mon that lounge cha­rac­ter, which a magic thea­tres these days appar­ently must have. Natu­rally, this is the place where the com­mer­cial side hap­pens with the sel­ling of drinks, snacks, fin­ger food and wha­te­ver. All of them play full-evening shows, each about 2 hours dura­tion (with a break). The set­ting, atmo­sphere and magi­cal con­tent seem to be very much alike. All are great, but none of them seems to stand out from an ori­gi­na­lity point of view for me.

So this deve­lo­p­ment went far away from my ori­gi­nal plan of an inti­mate table-top theatre in the style of Albert Gosh­man (with at most 20 or so spec­ta­tors) into a full flet­ched stand-up show, which is bears the decep­tive and allu­ring title “close-up magic” or “table theatre magic”. We still have a simi­lar situa­tion at our magic con­ven­ti­ons (at least at most of them, there are excep­ti­ons, of course), where close-up shows are still put into unfa­vor­ably set­tings, being per­for­med for audi­en­ces of some­ti­mes a few hundreds.

The same holds true for the majo­rity of close-up com­pe­ti­ti­ons. Is this a good trend? I am not sure. Surely the theatre ope­ra­tors do their abso­lut­ely best try­ing to create a pro­fes­sio­nal set­ting for close-up. Whe­ther this is the pro­per set­ting indeed, is doubtful. There is not­hing wrong with magic thea­tres, but then if the set­ting is like that shown in the cur­rent thea­tres, then a lot more stand-up rou­ti­nes would have to be shown. To call this “close-up magic” or “magic per­for­med up close” is no lon­ger the truth.

But what really looks dis­tur­bing to me is, that all these thea­tres look very much the same. The struc­ture, the set­ting and the con­cept. I have quite a lot of com­ple­tely dif­fe­rent loo­king theatre con­cepts for magic in my mind (and on the con­s­truc­tion paper). Some­thing that is really new and fresh, and has a distinct and dif­fe­rent look and feel. It is a pity as well, that the tricks shown are more or less stan­dard: Chop Cups, end­less card rou­ti­nes (Ambi­tious Card, Oil and Water, folded cards to any­where, color chan­ges, and on), the usual coin stuff (3‑fly, CTT, coins across), rope stuff, cups and balls and tons of “men­ta­lism”. More ori­gi­na­lity and variety in sel­ec­tion and con­s­truc­tion of the magic mate­rial would really be app­re­cia­ted. other­wise it seems like ‘Have you seen one, then you have seen them all.’ And – if per­forming for so many peo­ple, the mate­rial has to be brought up into the art of stand-up pre­sen­ta­tion – means going from hori­zon­tal to ver­ti­cal. A matrix on the table-top is no fun to watch from the 7th row …

My opi­nion on this of this kind of theatre (close-up tricks for a stand-up audi­ence) chan­ged. Per­so­nally, I think it is wrong. I was wrong then in the past. I lear­ned and I cor­rec­ted my wrong thin­king paths. Today I think com­ple­tely dif­fe­rent about how real close-up magic has to (or should be) per­for­med. my initial idea years ago is a one-way-street.

If I were to open such a thing these days, I would­n’t go for that plain theatre style. I have quite a few inte­res­t­ing ideas for other venue for­mats, which do not kill the ori­gi­nal idea of true close-up and are much more exci­ting. Ideas that go bey­ond that trend and that are much more sui­ta­ble for the audi­ence to expe­ri­ence real close-up. So far, nobody is inte­res­ted in my ideas. And why should they? The curr­ents sys­tems seem to work.

As ever­y­body knows: Never change a run­ning sys­tem. It is easier to fol­low a working path. Really? Why not dare to go into ano­ther direction?