by Hazel Flynn
Magic was on the cusp of major reinvention. Within a few years a massive image change would see it regarded as edgy and cool, but there was no whiff of that in the air at the time. Now when I think about taking my act to America it’s Broadway I’m thinking of, but at the time of that first trip a Vegas show was the height of my ambition because it was the pinnacle of any magician’s ambition. I felt lit up with energy and excitement the whole time we were away. Even shopping for souvenirs was special. I was in heaven in the Vegas magic shops and used some of my hard-earned savings to buy books and wonderful old vaudevillian posters to add to the signed programs of the acts we’d seen.
The ready acceptance of the builders made me feel like a true magic insider in a way I never had in Australia. And the incredibly high skill level of the magicians I was seeing didn’t intimidate me; just the opposite, it inspired me to strive to be as good as them. It was a huge step up from anything I’d ever done but I felt like I had what it would take. It was crystal clear to me that I needed to improve my equipment, my costuming, my lighting — everything. Even more important was the dedication and effort I’d need to put in. That didn’t faze me. I’ve never been afraid of hard work; Dad trained me well.
This trip also led me to the idea of including escapology in my act for the first time. One of the builders Dad and I went to see had asked if it was okay for him to invite a consultant who worked with him. I was impressed to walk in and find that the consultant was Garry Carson. I knew about him from the magazines I read: he was only twenty-five when he was chosen to perform for MGM Grand when it opened in 1993. He did twelve shows a day and what was intended to be a six-month contract ran for two and a half years.
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Garry and I got along really well. He had turned professional at fourteen and he saw something familiar in me that made him want to take me under his wing. He invited me to come and visit him at home — a suitably bizarre Vegas experience, given that he housed the tiger and black panther he used in his act on his property. We talked about various tricks and about the history of magic. Garry’s act included a straitjacket escape, made famous a century earlier by Houdini. He had a straitjacket to hand and to my delight he offered to give me a go at it. He buckled me in tight and said, ‘Okay, now escape.’ Then he walked out of the room and left me to it.
It wasn’t too bad at first. I was absolutely determined to get out of it and figured it was just a matter of persisting. I wriggled and I rolled around the living room for a long time without much effect. Hmm, short rest, some deep breaths and back into it, using all my force this time. Still nothing! I was getting really annoyed now. No way was this going to defeat me. More than an hour had passed and I’d made almost no progress. I yanked and tugged and jiggled and squeezed with all my might and finally, finally got my arms loose from the buckles holding them in place. But they were still stuck inside the sleeves, sewed shut so I couldn’t use my hands properly, and the crotch strap was still firmly buckled on the back, out of my reach. No matter how hard I tried I could not get the damned thing off.
Two hours after he’d strapped me in Garry returned to find me sweating, exhausted and defeated. With quick tugs on two buckles he freed me. I suppose some people would have felt angry with him or embarrassed. I didn’t. As frustrating as it had been, I genuinely appreciated the insight it had given me into a classic stunt. I paid close attention as he told me the secret of the escape. The first step was to expand your chest as much as possible while being strapped in, to give yourself a little bit of room to work. I’d figured that part out, remembering my experiments as a kid breaking free of the ropes Adam and John used to tie me in, although in my eagerness to get going I had forgotten to apply it. It was the next part that had really flummoxed me.
Houdini used to claim he could dislocate his shoulder at will and that’s what enabled him to get free. But like so many of his claims that’s nothing more than a colourful story. (In fact while Houdini could and did genuinely escape on his own often, he wasn’t above using hidden blades to cut himself loose.) Forget dislocating joints, the key is the sequence in which you wriggle the buckles loose; get the sequence wrong and you’ll be hopelessly stuck, as I learned the hard way. Once you knew the sequence it was simply a matter of practising over and over again until you could break free without busting a gasket. Garry was generous and encouraging and when, at our trip’s end, he told me and Dad to keep in touch it was clear he meant it.
We arrived home in time for the start of the new semester and even though I continued to work hard at university my mind was flooded with ideas I was itching to try out. I found a straitjacket of my own at a juggling and circus supplies store in Melbourne. I began practising so that I could work it into my act. I didn’t know of any other Australian magicians doing escapes, although overseas performers such as Garry used it to great effect. Escapology really only came to be considered part of magic because Houdini stuck with the title magician even after he moved away from doing card tricks and other close-up magic to doing stunts and escapes. It actually demands a completely different set of skills than conjuring or illusion work — a physicality that I really enjoyed.
It inspired me to read up on Houdini and his feats. I got a huge thrill when I discovered that not only had he visited Australia, he had come specifically to try to make aviation history, and while he was here he performed a stunt in my home town that made headlines around the world! Wrapped in locked chains and weighted down, he had jumped from Melbourne’s Queens Bridge into the Yarra River. Twenty thousand people were there to witness his escape. I’d crossed over or passed by the Queens Bridge hundreds of times without thinking anything of it but now whenever I saw it I thought of Houdini and I often stopped and gazed at it, trying to recreate those amazing scenes in my mind’s eye.
The dove work I’d seen Lance Burton do in Vegas inspired me to increase the presence of doves in my show, and the diversity of the performers I’d seen inspired me to show more of my personality. I drew up some new costume ideas and Nonna made them for me. I began rehearsing an act where I would begin in quite a traditional manner, with candles, doves and rabbit. But my costume was a new take on classic styles, bringing together a yellow fedora, black pants with a yellow side stripe and black straps and silver buckles, and a Roman-inspired leather chest-plate with yellow trim. It set up the expectation of a new approach that I delivered on with a change of music and pace as I moved through my routine. The feeling that I was aiming for was the transition from the traditions of the past to an unfolding future.
My own future lay before me and I felt like I had reached a fork in the road. What I’d seen and felt in Las Vegas juiced me up, filling me with the desire to throw myself into magic and see just how far I could take it. I didn’t think of myself as a quitter and I wasn’t about to walk out on my university studies — everyone else in my family has a uni degree and I still assumed it would be important for me to have one too — but I needed time to focus fully on magic and nothing else. The solution was to take a leave of absence from my course.
My family understood my choice. As a child, Mum had been a gifted gymnast winning competitions, but her parents had to pull her out because they couldn’t afford even the small fees. She never got to test the limit of her ability and she didn’t want the same thing to happen to me. Dad was also supportive (although he might have felt differently if he’d known that I would never end up resuming my degree). To make it work I needed Adam. Fortunately he too was keen to see how far we could go. He was in the final year of a marketing degree and had a part-time job at a petrol station on weekends. By juggling his uni classes he could free up his weekdays to do school shows with me. The decision was made. I filled out the required forms and let the agency know I was available for as much work as they could throw at me. For the first time I could call myself a professional magician and I was tingling with excitement.
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MY INSPIRATIONS
GENE KELLY & FRED ASTAIRE
I discovered the greatest song and dance men of Hollywood’s Golden Age through the compilation film That’s Entertainment! They were totally different from one another, and I took different things from each of them. They were both American but Fred Astaire (who was thirteen years older than Gene Kelly) had spent a lot of time early in his career working in London; his look and feel was top hat and tails, very sophisticated, gentlemanly and old-style romantic. Gene Kelly was much more street, with an unmistakeably American energy and confidence and an extraordinary athleticism. He danced with a lower centre of gravity and he was sexy and he knew it. His distinctive look was rolled up pants that showed his white socks and a fedora hat worn with panache (Michael Jackson adapted this look in tribute to Kelly).
Once I discovered the pair of them I couldn’t get enough. Astaire’s polish and the stylised nature of his performance made a big impact on me as a kid of twelve and thirteen. There’s a wonderful scene in the film Royal Wedding where he dances with a hat stand; inspired by it I did a little number at one point where I danced with a broom. I loved their costumes too. That’s Entertainment! includes the only full number they danced together on film, from Ziegfeld Follies of 1946. They wear straw boaters and two-tone shoes and I wanted to copy their look. I remember going into town as a kid and trying to find myself a straw boater. And even though I didn’t know anyone in real life who wore those shoes, I pestered Mum until she found some for me. I wear two-tone shoes to this day. I just love that look, that style, that attitude.
I find the non-dancing parts of Fred Astaire’s movies slow and uninvolving, so prefer to watch clips of his brilliant numbers. But I can watch Gene Kelly’s movies over and over again, especially Singin’ in the Rain. He was famously competitive and ambitious and pushed himself even harder than he pushed those around him. The dancing he does in that movie, especially the ‘Moses Supposes’ number, is still astonishing. It’s so slick, so polished, so difficult, that I’m amazed every single time I watch it. Donald O’Connor is right there, matching Kelly step for step, and he’s a great dancer in his own right, but it’s Kelly you can’t take your eyes off.
Together Astaire and Kelly provide a masterclass in good old-fashioned entertainment. And they each often relied on a beautiful female partner — Ginger Rogers and Cyd Charisse were their top choices — who was also incredibly highly skilled. That of course resonates with me and the invaluable role played in my show by the wonderful Priscilla.
STRAITJACKETS
Unless you’re a budding escapologist or a medical historian you’ve probably never been bound tight in one of these garments. Take it from me, it is not a nice feeling. With your arms pinned around your body and everything tied up tight it’s easy to succumb to claustrophobia and panic. Straitjackets were widely used to subdue, control and punish mentally ill people from the late 1700s until the 1950s (when ‘chemical restraints’, meaning psychiatric drugs, became widespread). They come in numerous different designs but are typically made from sturdy canvas with heavy-duty buckles and either canvas or leather straps. The type favoured by Houdini and those who follow in his footsteps, including yours truly, requires the arms to be crossed over the chest before each sleeve is secured to a buckle on the back. There is also a groin strap to prevent the wearer simply bending over and shaking the whole thing off over their head. Some performers focus on the speed of the escape: the world record is under three seconds. It’s a great effort, but to me the speedsters miss the whole point. Houdini did straitjacket escapes for decades — the moves must have become second nature to him. But the master showman knew that the more difficult the audience believed a feat to be the more they would appreciate it, so he made sure to put up a mighty struggle every single time.
Shev Wanigatunga
From the outside, success seems easy. Most of us have been guilty of underestimating WHAT IT TAKES. WE LOOK AT PEOPLE WHO ARE AT THE TOP OF THEIR GAME, WHETHER IT’S SERENA WILLIAMS ON THE TENNIS COURT OR CATE BLANCHETT ON THE SCREEN, AND THINK, ‘HOW LUCKY THEY ARE TO BE DOING SOMETHING THEY LOVE, HOW GOOD THEY’VE GOT IT.’ WHAT WE’RE FORGETTING IS THE INCREDIBLE EFFORT IT’S TAKEN TO GET THEM TO THIS POINT. THEIR GRACE, ELEGANCE AND SKILL DISTRACT US FROM THE SWEAT AND COMMITMENT THAT MADE THEM SO GOOD AT WHAT THEY LOVE TO DO.
Magic fulfils me like nothing else. It enriches me mind, body and soul. But it makes demands of me too. Thousands of shows and years of hard work and sacrifice went into becoming good at the thing I love to do. The work continues on even now, of course, or I would lose my edge. But the years when I was really paying my dues are the years I spent, mostly with Adam right beside me, on the road doing small shows, often two a day. We call those years ‘the Grind’. That doesn’t mean we didn’t have fun, because we did. We connected with audiences and laughed and felt lucky to have been given the opportunity. But it was also exhausting and poorly paid, and there were times when each of us wondered if we hadn’t chosen the wrong path. But we were young and we had grit and energy. We gave it everything we had and were realistic, trusting that what we were learning every day would form the foundation for future success.
An experienced mentor would have been really useful, someone to give me advice and contacts in the way Lindi Jane Hunter had done a few years earlier. The gigs I was landing were either ad hoc and came through word-of-mouth, like the Warrnambool Children’s Festival, or were booked through the schools agency. The agency had a captive, static market. Its task was to maintain good relations with whoever approved shows in each school and make sure the schools were happy with what they were getting. Publicising the artists wasn’t part of the brief and nor was general career guidance.
It didn’t yet occur to Adam or me to try to find an agent who could broaden the available opportunities into things like corporate events or even upmarket parties. In hindsight there was a positive to not having a manager or agent: we had to learn the business inside out by stumbling our way through. Artists often want to keep themselves above the intricacies of the business side, they want to be free to think only of the creative side of things. I get that, but I think it’s a big trap. It makes you very vulnerable to unscrupulous or inadequate operators because they can bamboozle you. Being forced to figure things out for yourself in the early parts of your career is not an iron-clad guarantee that you won’t get ripped off later but it lessens the chances. You should never hand over the task of looking after your best interests to another party and simply hope for the best. Ultimately it’s your responsibility to stay on top of things.
My parents helped me buy a van to carry my gear around and I used the money I’d made so far from school shows to commission a couple more smallish things, tricks and illusions from prop-builders we’d met in Vegas, sending my design ideas and specs over by email. Dad helped me create other new equipment, including a cabinet to saw someone in half, a trick I’d been wanting to do for years. Next, we created a basic website.
It seemed my best move would be to sign on with a theatrical agent. Checking with a couple to find out how it worked, I was told I needed to send them a professional showreel— a short video tape of the act. The only video footage I had was from a shaky family handycam. I needed something much slicker than that. Adam and I looked into it and decided we needed to put on a showcase in a proper theatre and get it professionally shot and edited. The theatre in the not-for-profit St Martin’s Youth Arts Centre seemed perfect. Talking to the St Martin’s people we discovered that part of the deal with hiring the venue was hiring a theatre technician to run things. Then they asked us what we planned to do for the lighting design. Lighting design — what did that mean? Didn’t you just turn the lights on? No, apparently you hired someone who had those specialised skills. It was becoming clear that getting a showreel made was going to require more money than I had left in my savings. I went to Dad with my pitch for financial support. He could have just said, ‘No, sorry,’ and that would have been the end of that. But my enthusi
asm and confidence and the solid research Adam and I had already put in reassured him, and once again he and Mum made the dream a reality.
We decided I really needed a female assistant for the video, in addition to Adam. It would look more professional and the agents would expect that nod to tradition. We made up flyers and sent them out to dance schools. We targeted dancers because apart from being graceful and quick to pick up the choreography of a stage routine, they are limber, which is vital when a magician’s assistant is required to squeeze quickly into and out of small spaces. We auditioned a girl called Karen, who had been a friend in Adam’s year at school. We liked her and her skills and she was unfazed by the requirement to not reveal to anyone how the tricks worked. We gave her the job. Having three of us in the act gave it more polish and took us to a new level of professionalism.
It also made Adam and me employers for the first time, as young as we were. He and I were collaborators. We were on a completely equal footing, we both sacrificed money and time for the greater good of the act and we had shared expectations about it. If we needed to rehearse late into the night that’s what we did, no question. If one of us wasn’t smooth enough in a routine the other one said so and no offence was taken.
It was quite different managing someone else. I found it tricky at first to have to say, ‘Sorry, but that’s not right, we have to do it again,’ but Karen was willing and talented, which made it easy for us to adjust to the new dynamic. We prepared twenty minutes’ worth of material.
We found people to shoot and edit the video. The filming of the act went smoothly and I sat in the editing suite soaking up information about camera angles and lighting and pacing as the footage was cut down to a tight five minutes. It hadn’t occurred to Adam and me to get an audience in and film their reactions. We were thinking only about shooting the tricks, but reaction is everything in magic and it’s especially important when you’re trying to capture a magic act on film.