Chapter 5

MAKING THE MOST OF ASSISTANTS

No aspect of conjuring has been so neglected as the use of assistants. The theory prevails that an assistant is a sort of animated prop. The Great Man may be compelled to grant her a brief moment of glory while he causes her to float on air or saws her in half. But apart from this, her sole purpose is to wait on him. When not engaged in such menial service, she is supposed to stay out of the way and remain as inconspicuous as possible.

This is poor showmanship. As soon as your assistant appears, the audience notices her and thinks about her. If she does not add to your presentation, she will surely detract from it; there is no middle ground. Unless you give your assistant a role that makes her an integral part of the act, you are better off without her.

Several misconceptions are responsible for the almost universal failure to get full value from the use of assistants.

An assistant cannot function effectively without ample rehearsal. A conjurer often has trouble persuading a girl to assist him at all. If he insists on adequate rehearsals, she balks and threatens to quit. This forces him to reduce her participation to the bare essentials—actions that she can perform without rehearsal.

Something is wrong here. All over the country, girls fight for even the smallest parts in amateur plays. If they are selected, they spend many hours at rehearsal waiting to go through their brief scenes. Why do they find a play so much more appealing than a conjuring act? The answer is that the play offers them genuine roles. These may be small, but they are essential elements of the total effect.

The ordinary conjuring act, on the other hand, uses the assistant as a mere convenience. A girl may rehearse the part of A Waitress in a play, but nothing will persuade her that she needs to rehearse the job of actually being a waitress. The solution does not lie in cutting the assistant’s role to a point where she can do without rehearsal. On the contrary, it should be increased to the point where she wants to rehearse.

An exception needs to be noted here. Mental acts that involve assistants often use elaborate codes which must be memorized. For some reason, women object strenuously to this. Few of them will learn a code even when it means the chance of obtaining a leading role.

A second excuse for neglecting assistants is that the conjurer, quite properly, regards himself as the star. He then jumps to the conclusion that he can add to his prominence by suppressing his assistant. This does not work. Instead, he must focus some attention on the girl in order to gain still more attention himself.

No audience can concentrate on one thing for long, and no spectator will even make the attempt. His mind is sure to wander. You can control this wandering by constantly providing some new object for attention. Thus, you may shift the interest of your audience from your face to your hands, from your hands to your words, and from your words to some prop. This is fairly easy when you are alone on stage because there is nothing to compete with the things you do, say, and handle. But when you use an assistant, the case is altered. You cannot prevent her from attracting some attention no matter how inconspicuous she may be.

Actually, an unrehearsed assistant is anything but inconspicuous. She fidgets. She falls into positions which may not be awkward, but which are certainly not graceful. If she pretends amazement at your miracles, the pretense is obvious. If she fails to react, her indifference communicates itself to the audience.

Although you cannot keep your assistant from receiving attention, you can control both its timing and its strength. Throw attention to her briefly but at carefully chosen moments. Give her something to do which deserves that attention. Then have her direct the attention back to you. This is the technique used by star actors. They know that no audience will watch them constantly. A momentary switch to another actor provides relief and gives the star a fresh start.

Intermittent attention of this sort has another advantage. Stars shine by contrast. Audiences realize that you deserve no credit for outshining a waitress-assistant. The stronger the girl is, the more credit you get for remaining the star. Jack Benny summed this up in a sentence. Someone asked why he let Rochester steal his scenes. Benny replied, “I’d much rather have him steal my scenes than have him steal somebody else’s.” Benny knew that letting Rochester steal a few scenes helps the show. He also knows that he can afford it because he takes five or six scenes to every one that Rochester can steal.

As long as a performer stays well ahead of his support, he is the star. This is easy for a conjurer; he takes most of the attention, he takes it at every important moment, and he appears to do all the magic—or at least all that matters. The man who has those advantages and cannot outtop any assistant on earth had better work alone.

Perhaps the most common, and certainly the most serious, reason for not making full use of assistants is the lack of suitable material. Except for mental routines, where she acts as A Mind Reader, I do not know of a single trick on the market today which gives the assistant a real role. At most, she is mere livestock and differs from a dove or a rabbit only in being larger.

My own ideas on roles for assistants tend to be highly specialized. They are based on the personalities of individual performers and have little value for anyone else. The suggestions that follow originated in the fertile brain of my friend Robert Tilford of Baltimore.

APPLIED MAGIC

Working with an assistant offers many opportunities for quickies in which magic takes care of routine chores. For example, you put a cigarette between your lips and your assistant lights it by striking a match on the other side of the stage. Self-lighting cigarettes are available from dealers, but the use of an assistant is not mentioned in the instructions.

Quickies like this one have many advantages. They are good showmanship in their own right. They give your assistant brief prominence but leave no doubt that you are the star. They enrich the act by adding more magic per minute without turning your performance into a meaningless collection of small tricks. The interchange between yourself and your assistant introduces human interest, which most conjuring sorely lacks. Above all, applied magic is the sort of thing that a “genuine” magician would do. It therefore helps to convince the audience that you really are a magician. If you can establish this conviction, and the atmosphere of fantasy that goes with it, adding a little more showmanship will enable you to offer conventional tricks as demonstrations of magic.

SHARED EFFECTS

There are a number of pretty tricks in which The Magician and His Assistant can share. For example:

 

FAN-TASTIC

The standard Dye-Tube routine may be presented in connection with the Color-Changing Fan. Both items are available at most dealers. The Magician displays a sheet of paper. He rolls this into a tube and hands it to The Assistant, who gives him her closed fan in exchange. She pushes a white silk handkerchief into one end of the paper tube. The Magician flicks the fan open. It is green. He waves it at the tube. When the handkerchief emerges at the far end of the tube, it also is green. Presumably, it has been dyed magically by association with the green fan. The Assistant inserts another white handkerchief into the tube. The Magician snaps the fan shut. When he opens it again, it has turned yellow. He waves it a second time, and a yellow-dyed handkerchief appears at the end of the tube. This action is repeated once more. The fan turns red, and the third handkerchief is dyed the same color. The handkerchiefs should match the fan as closely as possible. This will probably require both hunting for suitable handkerchiefs and repainting the fan.

THE CARELESS ASSISTANT

Tricks in which The Magician supposedly makes a mistake are more impressive when his Assistant commits the blunder. A good example is The Mismade Flag, which is really another dye-tube trick. The Magician rolls paper into a tube. He calls attention to the fact that The Assistant holds a red, a white, and a blue silk handkerchief. She pushes these into the tube. However, neither of them notices that the blue handkerchief has not been thrust home. It slips out and falls to the floor. The Magician turns the handkerchiefs into an American flag, but as the blue silk was missing, the canton of the flag remains white. The blue silk is picked up. It and the mismade flag are placed in the tube. This time, the flag emerges properly colored.

 

THE SORCERER’S APPRENTICE

Every character in a play is there for a reason. What is your reason for using an assistant? If she is just a glorified hired girl, her connection with magic is slim at best. Why not introduce her as your Apprentice? Remark that she must study for another five years before she becomes a witch and ten more to be a full-fledged sorceress. In the meanwhile, she earns her keep by doing odd jobs.

Near the middle of the act, you can announce that although your Apprentice is not yet qualified to mix a love philter or put the evil eye on anyone, she has developed some skill with amusing trifles and would like to show what she can do. Our example is a slightly altered version of The Mismade Flag, but any convenient trick that appears to go wrong the first time will fit here.

The Apprentice puts the red, white, and blue handkerchiefs into the paper tube and chants, “Aba, athai, abatroy, agera, prosha!”

When she reaches the syllable “-ge-” you wince and remark, “My dear girl. How often must I tell you to pronounce that ‘a-gay-rah’ not ‘a-gee-rah’?” She pouts and insists that she did say “a-gay-rah.” You reply, “Very well, continue and see what happens.”

She pats the tube, a flag with a white canton and a blue handkerchief come out. Shake your head sadly. Take the tube, put the flag and the handkerchief back in. Pronounce the spell properly and bring out the completed flag.

This is done with the apparatus sold by your dealer, but you will need a duplicate blue handkerchief.

ONE TOUCH OF VENUS

You cannot exploit your assistant’s sex appeal unless she has it. But if she does, it can be a great asset. Unfortunately, capitalizing on it without vulgarity requires a good deal of imagination. The following routine will fit many acts. It is also a fine example of how Bob Tilford breathes new life into worn-out tricks. His version is a full-fledged illusion that will fit neatly into a haunted-conjurer act.

 

TWENTIETH-CENTURY NYLON

Display two green scarves. Tie them together. Give them to your Assistant who puts them in the bosom of her dress but leaves 6 or 8 inches of one hanging out. Pick up a red scarf. Wad it into a ball in your right hand. Announce that you will cause it to fly through the air invisibly and knot itself between the two green ones. When you toss it toward the girl, it has disappeared.

Confidently, take the end of the green scarf and pull. When it clears the girl’s bodice, you observe with chagrin that instead of being tied to the red scarf, it is attached to something long and thin. When this clears the bodice, you realize what it is and exclaim, “It’s your stocking!”

The Assistant lifts her skirt to see if this can be true and discovers to her consternation that one stocking is indeed missing and that the red scarf is tied around her leg like a garter.

One of the Assistant’s legs is bare from the beginning. A duplicate red scarf is tied around this leg. The stocking on the other leg is supported by a girdle or a garter belt. If the girl’s skirt comes to the floor, the stockings should contrast with her skin. If the skirt is shorter, the stockings should be almost—but not quite—flesh color. Then, the fact that one leg is bare will not be noticed until attention is called to it by lifting the skirt.

TWENTIETH-CENTURY NYLON

Cut off one comer of a green handkerchief and sew it to the heel of a stocking (B, Fig. 35). Tie Point A to Green scarf No. 1. Take several stitches in this knot to keep it from becoming untied. Spread Scarf No. 1. Make Folds 1-5, Fig. 36. Drape scarf around stocking (Fig. 37). When you perform, knot the unprepared green scarf (No. 2) to the green silk on the heel at B. Give both the scarves to your assistant who proceeds to tuck them into her bodice.

Your dealer can sell you a pull that will enable you to get rid of the first red scarf. Figs. 35-38 show how to make the stocking appear between the two green scarves.

THE ANTIGRAVITY HAT

Rip away a few stitches at the back of the sweatband to let the water out when you empty the hat. Otherwise, some of the water will stay under the band.

THE UNHELPFUL HELPER

A conjurer with a teen-age son soon learns that the boy is not of much value as an assistant. He has little to do, and that little rarely requires his full attention. His mind wanders. He makes aimless movements which distract the audience. As a result, he does far more harm than good.

This can be corrected by giving the boy a real part in the act. I have found only one role which meets the requirements. However, it has decided advantages both from the standpoint of comedy and from that of deception.

The boy poses as A Member of the Audience. He is the first to respond when The Magician calls for a volunteer. Once on stage, he examines the apparatus whenever the conjurer turns his back. By doing so, the boy acts as an unofficial inspector. As he can find nothing wrong, he convinces the audience that the equipment is innocent.

Soon, the boy decides to show off. At this point, a suggestion of Annemann’s fits perfectly. He printed this in his magazine The finx, but as far as I know, it has never been used.

 

THE ANTIGRAVITY HAT

The Magician’s hat is upside down on a table. Near it stands a glass or bottle of some liquid. The Boy yields to temptation. He pours a cupful of the liquid into the hat. This should be timed so that The Magician almost catches him at it. The Magician now does a number in which he wears his hat. But when he puts it on, The Boy is disappointed—no water runs out. The apparatus for this, known as a foo can, is shown in Figs. 39-41.

Undaunted by the failure of his joke, The Boy picks up something else, say, a cane, and swaggers about the stage. This time The Magician does catch him. He waves his wand and says, “Betu, Baroch, Maaroth!” The cane disappears. That frightens The Boy so badly that he jumps off the stage, runs down the aisle, and dashes out the door of the auditorium.

 

Both the conjurer and his son will be tempted to overdo this. It is fatally easy to invent actions which are funny but which give the game away. The act can be amusing if the audience realizes that The Boy is a plant, but it will be more hilarious —and infinitely more convincing—if the spectators believe he is a stranger.

The boy’s part should come near the end; just before the final illusion is ideal. The act must be thoroughly rehearsed, and much depends upon the boy’s temperament and acting ability. However, under favorable circumstances, this father-and-son act offers a real opportunity.

PAPA’S LITTLE GIRL

A conjurer’s young daughters are not well suited to comedy, but they can play a wide range of attractive roles in serious presentations. Here is one possibility for a girl about ten years old.

 

THE UNBEATABLE DRUM

After the act gets well under way, The Magician announces that he will introduce his Assistant. The child enters dressed as a drum-majorette but has a toy drum instead of a baton. She faces the audience and prepares to beat her drum. On a signal from her father, she strikes the drum with all her force—and the head breaks. As she is on the verge of tears, her father turns the drum over and encourages her to try again. This time she breaks the other head and really does cry. He takes the drum to his table, holding it so that the audience can see through it. The Magician replaces the drumheads with sheets of paper. He returns it to the girl, saying, “Be careful; the new heads are only paper. Don’t ...” But before he can finish, she breaks the head once more. When she starts to bawl, he reaches into the drum and pulls out one toy after another until she has more than she can hold.

The technical details are given in Figs. 42-44. Articles used in loads of this sort must either nest or be compressible. Thus, if you make dolls which consist of silk dresses and thin plastic faces, you can pack one inside the other so that half-a-dozen of them will occupy much less space than a single regular doll. Nevertheless, they will look like ordinary dolls to your audience if you handle them properly and display only one at a time—especially when their costumes are so different that the dolls do not look like a set.

Rubber goods also make excellent production items. These are either hollow shells of latex or are modeled from some highly compressible sponge plastic. Those on the market usually simulate fruit or other edible objects. However, it is easy to cast toys from liquid latex. You will need models. These may be real toys, or you can mold them from plasticine. The only other requirements are latex, latex paint, and plaster of Paris. Most hobby shops carry these, and the clerks can teach you how to use them.

THE UNBEATABLE DRUM

The hook on the girl’s belt makes it easy to reverse, remove, and replace the drum. The drumheads are paper. The load is obtained by the method used in The Expanding Rabbit, but the procedure is simpler.

THE ASSISTANT AS CONJURER

Almost every conjurer has read how the illusions in The Charlatan baffled Dr. Tarbell and his friends, but few of them have put their lessons to use. At least half of the material in the average stage act uses mechanical devices which anyone who knows the secret can operate. The best person to do this is the assistant. No one suspects him or her, and most of the time all eyes are focused on the conjurer. The Boy in The Unhelpful Helper is an obvious example. The principle is equally applicable to conventional acts. Thus, loading the rabbit of The Expanding Rabbit into the hat is a delicate operation—when the conjurer does it. If the animal squirms violently at the wrong moment, there will be a flash of white fur and the secret is revealed. But if the assistant loads the hat, the danger is nil. The Magician shows the hat empty and gives it to the girl who lays it casually on the table. They both turn to the boy while The Magician displays the toy rabbit saying that it is a baby. No spectator is going to miss this bit. While attention is fixed on the toy, the assistant casually takes the hat from the table, loading the rabbit as she does so. When she hands the hat to The Magician, the hard part is over. The Magician never went near the table, and most of the audience will swear that he held the hat the whole time.

CASTING ASSISTANTS

The assistant’s characterization is as important as the conjurer’s own. In fact, the conjurer cannot hope to stay in his character unless the assistant maintains hers. The two roles must be consistent with each other. An Absent-Minded Professor cannot plausibly introduce an eye-filling assistant in tights. However, such a combination is completely believable if she poses as The Assistant to Marvello the Magician.

Do not stop with your first idea for your assistant’s characterization. Try to find several different types. Your first thought may not be the best, or it may require a type of girl who is not available. If you want to impersonate An Absent-Minded Professor and cannot persuade any whistle-worthy lass to assist you, do not despair. You can get as much comedy if your Professor is aided by his Middle-Aged Wife or Teen-Age Niece, who does not quite understand what she is supposed to do—and who balls up the Professor’s demonstrations even more than he does himself.

Any change in the characterization of your assistant will mean a change in your act. Thus, if you work with Marvello’s Assistant, you will need Marvello’s props. If you use The Professor’s Niece, your props must seem to be things that The Professor might plan to employ for his own “scientific” demonstrations. This means that you must determine both your own characterization and that of your assistant before you plan your act. If you work out the act first, fitting characters to it is a hopeless task.

Even when the girl portrays A Typical Conjurer’s Assistant, she must be given a definite characterization. She may be beautiful-but-dumb. This is especially good when she does much of the conjuring; no one will dream of suspecting her. She may be highly efficient, always ready when needed, unobtrusive but alert when idle. She may be a personification of wide-eyed wonder; no matter how often she sees the illusions, she never quite believes that they are really happening.

The role must fit the girl. Do not choose a characterization because you like it or because your assistant likes it. A girl who is completely believable as An Efficient Assistant will convince no one if she tries to portray wide-eyed wonder. This is vital. Unless both you and your assistant feel that her characterization is absolutely right, try something else.

An assistant must react in character to what goes on, but she should never overact. As she has presumably seen the routines many times, surprise on her part is out of place except in illusions where something “goes wrong.” This is true even for the wide-eyed wonder type; she can be continually amazed but not continually surprised. When an assistant is placed in peril, as in Sawing a Woman in Half, coach her to seem nervous and apprehensive. Her attitude should be, “This magic has always worked before, but my good luck can’t last forever.” When the danger is passed, have her reveal her relief. In short, whatever role the girl plays tell her to behave just as she actually would if everything that you claim or imply were true.

The assistant who acts as a medium or takes a character role must look and dress the part. This permits a wide range of choices because you can arrange the role to fit the assistant you get. However, if she is to play The Typical Magician’s Assistant, she must be decorative and graceful. Your wife, your girl friend, or your maiden aunt may be charming and useful, but unless they look well on stage, they will spoil your act. Youth is desirable but not essential. What counts most is the figure. A slim, white-haired woman of forty is a better choice than a chubby girl of twenty.

SECRET ASSISTANTS

A confederate is an assistant who poses as an innocent Member of the Audience. Many conjurers disapprove of using confederates on the ground that it is unfair! This is nonsense. What counts is the illusion. If you can create a better illusion by using a confederate than you can without one, by all means use him.

The real objection to confederates is that they are likely to be suspected. If they are, the illusion is destroyed. On the other hand, when the confederate is not suspected, the illusion can be overwhelming.

In “impromptu” performances, try to avoid employing your wife or best friend as a confederate. When you must use such a person, cast him in a role which makes him seem to be playing a trick at your expense. This is the scheme adopted by Frederic Tilden in The Charlatan to convince the audience that his lawyer-assistant was really his enemy. Here is an illusion which depends entirely on this principle.

 

BOOBY TRAP

After you have performed Chromavoyance, your confederate remains unconvinced. You were the one who suggested using pencils in the test, and he suspects that the pencils were faked in some way. You claimed that you could detect the color of any shiny object. He, therefore, challenges you to let him select the object while you are out of the room.

Hesitate, complain that the demonstration requires great concentration and is very tiring, but finally give in.

When you are gone, your confederate says, “I still think he’s been tricking us. Let’s turn the tables. He’ll make a guess and hope to be lucky, but he’s bound to name a color. I’m going to cross him up by handing him something white.” The confederate “finds” some shiny white object, warns the others not to spoil the game, and calls you back into the room.

You dutifully turn your face away, and he lets you touch the object. Appear puzzled. Take your time and speak half to yourself. “It can’t be black or blue or purple because I get a strong sensation. It’s strong, but it isn’t definite. Red, pink, orange, yellow, brown, green—it feels a little like all of them. But that’s impossi. ... Wait a minute! A mixture of all colors makes white or gray. The sensation’s too strong for gray, so it must be white.”

This is extremely convincing. It also chokes off anyone else who might want to suggest a test of his own.

 

An accomplice is a concealed assistant—a secret helper who hides in the wings, under the stage, or in a piece of apparatus. the effectiveness of an accomplice depends on the fact that the audience does not even suspect his existence. Hence, a regular assistant cannot become an accomplice merely by walking off stage. In fact, when an accomplice is working, your other assistant(s) should be clearly visible in order to avoid any suggestion that a device is being operated by an unseen member of your troupe. The assistant who operates the computing machine in Number Please is a typical accomplice.