Современная магия

While it is obvious that Hoffmann understood this important truism, many of the magicians who were deeply influenced by his writings over the course of the next century forgot it, and the effectiveness of their performances suffered because of it. «The evening dress of ordinary life» in Victorian times was quite different from that of today, yet the image of the magician in Inverness cape, top hat and tails still persists. Also, the apparatus «of a simple and homely kind» that would seem quite natural in a Victorian drawing room is, in the magic performance of today, so unusual that it gives the appearance of having been created only to produce the desired effect. Yet today there are still many magicians who present their effects on single-leg tables with black velvet drapes, often with gold fringe, a common piece of furniture in Professor Hoffmann's time but totally unknown-outside of magic performances-in the contemporary world. One can imagine that if the good professor were alive today to see the continued use of the props described in his great textbook, he would thoroughly disapprove.

But, granted that Hoffmann's views on performance style (and, unfortunately, his Victorian trappings) have been basic to the magic of the last century, many other things have changed since he wrote his book. In the introduction to Modern Magic, for instance, he describes «two or three appliances, which are of such constant use that they may be said to form the primary stock-in-trade of every conjuror. These are-a short wand, a specially adapted table, and certain secret pockets in the magician's dress.» He comments that these «are so indispensable that we could hardly complete the description of half-a-dozen tricks of any pretension without a reference to one or other of them.» It is interesting that a century later all three of these primary «appliances» have become virtually obsolete, and are used today only in the most specialized circumstances. The wand is still used in the presentation of some classic effects such as the Cups and Balls, but the tailcoat with its secret pochettes and profondes, and the draped table with its servante and elaborate traps, have been (or should be) relegated to magic history. It is significant that today's most successful young magician, Doug Henning, who has starred on Broadway and in a number of highly successful television specials, has made as radical a change in the image of the traditional magician in our time as Robert-Houdin did in his. Instead of the traditional tails and top hat, Henning has adopted a theatrical version of the dress of contemporary youth, wearing blue-jeans style pants and skin-tight T-shirts which offer convincing evidence that nothing he uses in his amazing effects could be concealed on his body. Thus, when Henning magically produces a huge owl or a large bowl of fire (both effects from his repertoire), the amazed response of his audiences is much greater than if he were attired in a tailcoat or a voluminous opera cape.

Some effects, using props common in the Victorian era but uncommon today, have also disappeared. It is interesting that the most common image of a magician is a man pulling a live rabbit from a top hat, yet this feat, almost never seen today, was effective in the nineteenth century because the magician could borrow a top hat from any gentleman in his audience. The fact that it was a borrowed hat made the production of rabbits (and often other unlikely articles such as cannonballs, bird cages and lighted Chinese lanterns) a truly amazing effect. Today few people, save magicians, carry top hats, and a contemporary audience might suspect (perhaps correctly) that the hat containing the rabbit is just another trick magician's prop.

There is another popular area of magic that has been almost completely transformed, in terms of technique, since Professor Hoffmann's time. This is the vast field of card magic. Unquestionably, more technical literature has been published on card magic in the last century than on any other area of magic; the number of books, large and small and in all languages, runs into the thousands.