The Theatrical Structure of Magic and the Disbelief of the Impossible

In this first look at the structure of magic, I'll try to explain some concepts to get us all on the same page, a starting point from which to build a common language within the theoretical framework of magic, so we all speak the same language when we talk about this performing art.

In Greek, the word 'theater' means "a place for contemplation." It's the branch of performing arts related to acting, which presents stories performed in front of an audience using a combination of speech, gestures, set design, music, sound, and spectacle. It's also the literary genre encompassing works conceived for a stage before an audience. The two Greek Muses, Thalia and Melpomene, daughters of Zeus, represent the world of dramaturgy with their joyful and tragic masks. 2500 years ago, buildings were constructed in classical Greece for public enjoyment, and Greek myths, tragedies, and performances are well-known to all. We could say that performance is as old as civilization itself, and from then until now, philosophers and thinkers have debated and redefined the conceptualization of this major art form.

Let's fast forward a few centuries. In 1817, British poet and philosopher Samuel Taylor Coleridge made a significant contribution to the conceptualization of the performing arts by coining the term “suspension of disbelief.” It’s an expression referring to the viewer’s/reader’s/player’s willingness to accept the premises on which a fiction is based as true, even if they are fantastical or impossible. Suspension of disbelief or “suspensión de la incredulidad" is such an important term that it continues to be used in other modern performing arts, like television and cinema. It refers to the audience's ability to immerse themselves in the fictional world presented to them and engage with it without interruption, without leaving the created scenario because they find something in it unbelievable.

Thanks to the suspension of disbelief magicians can create an alternate reality where, for the duration of the magician's performance, and solely by their sheer will, the audience can believe a playing card can change color, a ring can invisibly travel inside a padlocked box, or a rabbit can appear from a top hat. But let's not kid ourselves; this doesn't just depend on the audience's capacity or ignorance. It depends on a skillful, creative magician and their arduous work of planning, practice, and creativity.

Without straying from our objective, we face a dilemma when approaching magic; let's call it a “meta-magic” approach, beyond tricks, illusion, gimmicks, or suggesting emotions beyond mere astonishment. I consider it fundamental to understand the ground we're on to define our boundaries when constructing a magical experience. There will be time later to discuss who we want to perform magic for.

Magic is a theatrical discipline. It's a performance offered to entertain an audience. Bernard Beckerman, director of the Performing Arts Program at Columbia University, proposed a classification of three basic types of spectacles:

Glorification Spectacles: parades, festivals, etc.

Skill Spectacles: circus, juggling, acrobatics, etc.

Illusion Spectacles: theater and magic.

Notice the last classification. Theater and magic are so intrinsically related that they are grouped together under the same type of spectacle. The immortal Robert-Houdin defined the magician as “an actor playing the part of a magician,” and a fundamental aspect of the magician's theatrical persona is that they possess magical powers. The audience may or may not believe in them, but visual, sometimes tactile, and even sensory evidence demonstrates that the impossible happens at the magician's command.

Many magicians believe their job is to present flashy tricks in an entertaining way to fool the audience. I believe this attitude does more harm to magic than anything else. If someone is fooled by a magic effect, they feel they've been messed with, or even worse, that they've been taken for a fool. If they are astonished by a magic trick, they might feel cheated because they know there was a trick involved at some point and they didn't see it. Framing magic as a competition where the magician is the smartest person in the room is to completely sacrifice the magical experience, subverting the emotional appeal of the miraculous to the strictly intellectual appeal of the puzzle. It is, as we'll see from a neurological standpoint, exciting the wrong hemisphere of the brain.

Not every audience member is willing to enjoy the experience; not everyone has an X-Files poster on their wall that says “I Want to Believe.” Just as there are people who don't like theater (or superhero movies, or romantic comedies) and prefer Iranian cinema in its original version or the *nouvelle vague* genre, where protagonists experience everyday things while feeling lost in a homogeneous world they don't understand, there are also spectators who don't like magic because they conceptualize it as a puzzle, a riddle, a deception, a challenge—all situations in which they lose. Don't bother with them (as Juan Belmonte said, "there have to be those who fall"), don't try to evangelize them into magic and illusion, and instead, focus on the spectators who *are* interested in magic.

The best situation for your audience — those who will watch you with expectations but whom you haven't yet earned the right to call your own, is to find some kind of balance between magic's mythical appeal (right hemisphere) and its puzzle-like appeal (left hemisphere), just like a bow and arrow, and from this tension, create a unique magical experience. If, as the Greek philosopher Heraclitus wrote half a millennium before the birth of Christ, “beauty and truth are found in the tension between opposites,” then perhaps this is where the magical experience is created: in the tension between heart and head, between emotion and intellect.

The magician's job is to make the audience enjoy the impossible *because* it's impossible, not because they believe it's true. Magic is not deception; magic is the control of perception for entertainment purposes. Engrave it in stone, tattoo it, write it on a blackboard—do whatever it takes not to forget this premise, and don't question it; treat it as a dogma of faith. If you alter it, you'll be doing something else, but it won't be magic.

It is fundamental that the audience isn't aware they are being deceived, as, paraphrasing the painter Picasso from Malaga, if all art is a lie that tells the truth, the art of magic must ensure that the audience achieves that suspension of disbelief, under the rules the magician imposes, for the duration of the show. The magical moment.

American magician Simon Aronson noted: “there’s a great difference between not knowing how something is done and knowing that it *cannot* be done.” Only the latter of these situations satisfies the audience's appetite for wonder, their deep desire to believe in magic. It's to that point one must arrive to offer a unique magical experience: “I don’t know what he did, I don’t know how he did it, but it’s impossible.”

Now, though....

Is that the only way? Absolutely not. Just because magic is a branch of theater doesn't mean it doesn't have its own language, its own rules which, by their very nature, can and, I emphatically state, must be broken. In fact, the greatest innovations in the last 100 years have emerged from breaking those rules tacitly imposed in the 19th century, inherited from Robert-Houdin or Hofzinser—authors whom I doubt intended to impose a doctrine.

During this time, other disciplines have been incorporated, such as spiritualism (so reviled by Houdini, in the form of mentalism, séances, etc.); escapology, by Houdini himself; gambling demonstrations, Oriental magic (supposedly Oriental, Okito and Fu Manchu were British-Dutch) or close-up magic (which emerged due to the proximity of cameras and the ability to view the effect from various angles). On the other hand, magic shows had to adapt to the speed demanded by the audience, who, with the rise of television, no longer tolerated hour-long theatrical performances, and magical gimmicks had to become smaller and more portable to save on transport costs.

Regarding the structure of the magic show, amidst the artistic upheaval of the first third of the 20th century, German playwright Bertolt Brecht decided that the suspension of disbelief was useless if it didn't change society. He coined the term *Verfremdungseffekt*, translatable as “distancing effect,” to define his artistic intent. Brecht aimed for the audience to remain aware that they were watching a performance, and therefore, from time to time, his actors would address the audience directly to remind them that they were indeed actors. The goal was for the audience not to get carried away by their feelings, not to be emotionally moved by the story itself but by its meaning (anti-war sentiment, for example) to motivate their action.

The use of the distancing effect in magic is a technique sometimes employed to place the audience where the magician wants them and even to enhance the subsequent effect. Who doesn't remember the renowned Anthony Blake reciting his mantra: “everything you’ve seen is a product of your imagination,” as a demonstration that he is beyond the audience's credulity, giving us a final jab. Putting aside Gabi Pareras' classifications (another great magician whom I doubt intended to indoctrinate, something his followers seem not to realize) regarding the magician's attitude toward effects (to be covered in other articles), the magician's persona can and should be unconventional in their performance.

Let's remember that in magic, there is no fourth wall, that we perform for an audience who lives, feels, and is moved by our actions every step of the way. Any stylistic device is acceptable within a context that enhances the performance, making it different and unique, ensuring that the memory, the magical experience, the suspension of disbelief, or the very affirmation of the impossibility of what is happening, arises from motivations different from our own person, from feeding our own vanity. The right to wear the magician's cape does not come from knowledge, practice, or specialization, but from the ability to evoke emotion and be credible, leaving the spectator with no doubt that what they have witnessed is impossible, astonishing, and entertaining. That it is pure theater.

Bibliography

Biographia Literaria (1817), Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Theatrical Presentation (1990), Bernard Beckerman

Memoirs of Robert-Houdin, ambassador, author and conjurer (2023), Robert-Houdin, R. Shelton Mackenzie

Shuffle-Bored (1980), Simon Aronson

A Little Organum for the Theater (1948), Bertolt Brecht

Mystery School (2003), Charles Reynolds