Political Hack
by Kenton Knepper

Imagine this illusion.

The performer’s assistants are seen wheeling out a typical Thin Model Sawing In Half. The audience thinks “Ho-hum… seen this one.”

Another assistant enters the stage dressed in a soldier’s uniform. Salutes are exchanged. The soldier removes his boots. One boot is placed on the top half of the box, and the other boot on top of the foot or lower end of the box.

The soldier assistant enters the box as usual. Two blades are thrust into the middle of the box. The soldier goes limp. His feet do not kick, as all is motionless. The box halves are respectfully and slowly pulled apart. The soldier is clearly cut in half and immobile. The two boxes are moved to two parts of the stage.

And then?

The lights on the stage change to a red wash, coloring the stage and all on it in crimson.

Fade to black. The curtain, if there is one, comes down in silence. No music.

The End

No, the person does not suddenly jump up out of the box to a rousing Sousa March. The solider doesn’t come screaming “Hooray” out of the back of the theatre door. There is silence. There is a soldier torn apart. The curtain falls. That’s it.

Right now, some of you are thinking, “That’s brilliant!” and some of you are thinking, “I am going to strangle that pompous ass for even suggesting such a routine. How unpatriotic. How dare he?”

My point is not political. My question is simple, but not easily answered.

Can magic be Art?

Before you quickly agree that it is possible, consider how this can be, and when this is so. There are a few magical performers who attack social constraints with searing atheism. But is this all that Magic, of all things, can conjure up artistically? This would seem rather obvious and shallow. Surely an atheistic point of view is one artistic option. But is that the only one allowed?

Recently I was watching a DVD when a well-known performer intoned the old saw that “politics and religion ought to be kept out of conversations in polite company, with family, and therefore surely out of performing.”

Really?

That would make magic rather impotent, at least when it comes to legitimate art.

Art forms, even the most crass and commercial types, make continual social, political and spiritual commentary. If you agree with all you read or hear, then you are not watching or seeing art. You may be hunkered down in the bunker of head-in-the-sand reality of like-minded people, but you are not experiencing ART if you always agree with it.

In the 1970s I ended our two-hour stage show with a Cremation. I borrowed a person from the audience. I had two masked assistants force the person honestly kicking and hitting into a coffin until they could lock the doors on her. I poured gasoline into the coffin (it’s a trick kids – don’t try this at home!) and lit the coffin on fire with a torch.

The flames leapt high into the air. The coffin sides were lowered. As the coffin sat on stage burning furiously, I looked right into the audience and said, “Good night!” Sometimes I would say, “Good night, stay safe!” just to rub it in.

The flames died down, the music ended, and no one was left on stage. The curtained closed and the house lights went up. That was the end of the Cremation illusion and the entire show.

This caused confusion and even nasty outrage in some areas of the country. But it wasn’t the same old thing. The important question remains however. Was this art?

The Cremation the way we used to do it was art to me in the most social sense. When people starting railing about how dare I do this, that I was evil and so on, I pointed out that only unthinking people or children (who could not attend those shows) would imagine I got away with actually killing someone every night, and was free to move around the world to another town. The effect allowed me to speak in interviews about how there is too much reaction in society without measured thought.

But magic does not need to scoop down to gross-out fests, scaring people or atheist ranting only. That may be all it is doing socially right now, but might it do more?

These many years later, what I usually see on stage is flags being produced and waved patriotically as they were back in the 1920s magic shows. We currently find ourselves in a war that most of the world, and nearly seventy-five percent of the people in our country dislike. Is magic doing anything to talk about that?

Music is, artwork is, and plays and movies are. Magic? Mentalism?

Is it simply not possible? If it is possible, how do we do that?

Dare we?

I imagine it is fear that stops us. That’s just what those who enslave others wish; fear of expression, condemnation of other points of view. The status quo must be kept at all costs – all costs to others – rarely to themselves.

Dare we use magic as art?

A sure sign of collapse of a civilization is a lack of art and artistic expression.

Magic should not be worse as a means of expression than any other art form.

But it is, now isn’t it? Honestly.

Mentalism isn’t any better.

I do not suggest preaching. That isn’t art. Look at other forms of real art. How do other forms of art suggest and allude to a point of view? How does real art challenge others?

Let’s learn from other art forms. Let’s dare – just a little.

Let’s put some power back into magic, before it all goes away.

Magic is not meant to suffer audiences into boredom, gross-out fests, spooking people or atheist ranting alone. There has got to be more that needs to be said.

I wrote a great deal about artistic options in “Mystery By Association” but I am not offering you answers here. The real answer is a question that each person must ask alone and listen within for their inner response.

“How do I make what I do in magic socially relevant?”

At least, once in a while.

In some way.

While you still can.

Still Upset?

Are you still furious at my example?

You should be. Because it is symbolic of reality. You should be raving mad about the trickery going on in the real world. I know that it’s much easier to attack an artist however or someone who speaks about what is going on, than to deal with the reality of what is going on. But being angry at the art is not being angry at the actual problem to which that art alludes.

A Mismade Flag is a trick performed by many properly patriotic people. But isn’t that much the same as goofing around with the flag and treating it with the disrespect that some want to imprison others for doing? It’s different when you perform it, because the flag comes out right in the end? That makes it fine that you mess around with the flag?

I am intentionally pushing buttons because I want you to think about how you could make your magic more artistically and socially relevant. As I said, I have found toned-down ways, which I have discussed in the “Association” book.

Rather than becoming upset with me and words on a page, or symbolism of horrors going on, stop and think about what you do not like about your world and society. Now, how can you make a statement about that with a magic trick, without preaching?

Maybe you do the Mismade Flag in reverse, so it is deconstructed as you talk about how our rights are being stripped away under the guise of patriotism. I know this too is blasphemous. Remember I am trying to make you think and feel, so that you find proper answers for yourself. I don’t want you to be comfortable doing Four Ace Cutting only. You might perform the Mismade Flag in reverse, talked about the changing face of patriotism and then in the end, put the flag together after all, as you deliver a hopeful message of standing up for your rights as the true meaning of patriotism.

I know that some will still misunderstand all that I am saying, and go flaming away about how I am unpatriotic. I am not. Not at all. I am so patriotic in fact that I will not stand by silently while others destroy the real fabric of our country, all the time yelling about what people to do the fabric that makes up a flag. Symbols are not the thing in the physical.

My main point is not that you should perform any of these examples. Some patriotic types might go after you violently for freely speaking your mind. My point is that you find your own way to incorporate a little bit of social relevance, once in a while, into your magic and mentalism. It need not be extreme.

But it ought to make a point.

Unless you care not one wit whether magic will ever be a real, grown-up art form.

You may not.

Then I wish you many happy, safe and successful birthday parties and bar mitzvah performances. I have good friends who do those.

Meantime, musicians, authors and painters will be considered more socially important, relevant, and paid better.

That’s the point.

Period.

Kenton