by Hazel Flynn
Eventually I would prove that they’d been wrong, but only after many years of holding on to my belief in the face of scepticism from ‘industry experts’. There are lots of stories like mine where success came from ignoring the naysayers. Bill Gates, Stephen King, Fred Astaire, the Wright Brothers and J.K. Rowling are often given as examples of people who triumphed over failure and rejection. But what about the people on the flipside of that coin, the ones who should have quit because they were fooling themselves all along? People who know my story sometimes ask me how I was so sure I was on the right track. What they mean is, why was I certain that I was right and everyone else was wrong; where’s the boundary between self-belief and self-delusion? I don’t have a neat answer to that question. I only know that I didn’t just have a vague feeling about what I might be able to achieve, I had a conviction so strong it pushed me on even when it wasn’t fun, when quitting would have been the easier, more comfortable path.
No-one else can tell you if you’re right or wrong in your pursuit of a dream. There’s only one way to find out — and that’s by giving it your all and staying true to yourself.
Cosentino family collection
PEPPER’S GHOST
Illusions are the cornerstone of stage magic but believe it or not one of the most potent was first described hundreds of years before stage magicians even existed. The illusion is a spectral figure that can move in an unearthly way, passing straight through solid objects including furniture and even actors. Sixteenth century scientist Giambattista della Porta described it as a way to see ‘things that are not’. Known as ‘Pepper’s Ghost’ it’s such a great effect it’s still in common use today, including in theme-park haunted houses and at the 2014 Billboard Music Awards, where it made Michael Jackson ‘take the stage’ one more time. When you follow the YouTube instructions to make a ‘hologram’ using a plastic prism and your mobile phone you’re creating a digital version of Pepper’s Ghost.
To understand how the illusion works picture yourself in a lit room at night, looking out a window. If it’s pitch black outside you’ll see only the reflection of the room. But if there’s some low level illumination out there you’ll see a ghostly version of the things in the room layered over the outdoor sights. The glass of the window is doing two things at once: reflecting and being transparent. Pepper’s Ghost relies on this.
It requires an area that is near the stage but hidden from audience view, for instance a kind of concealed orchestra pit, completely draped in black fabric. A sheet of glass or Plexiglass is positioned towards the front of the stage, angled forward to the audience — it has to be spotless so they don’t realise it’s there.
An actor in the hidden space is illuminated by a very bright light, either directly or using a mirror, creating a reflection on the glass. The stage itself is also lit, but not too brightly, allowing the ghostly reflection and the actors onstage to seemingly interact (the hidden actor can’t see the rest of the cast so they rely on well-rehearsed choreography).
To make the ‘ghost’ glide you get a stagehand to pull the actor in the pit along on a trolley. It is a great coming together of two worlds: solid science creating an ethereal, magical effect.
I’d been fascinated by hypnotism ever since I’d seen my brother John onstage fixing an IMAGINARY WASHING MACHINE. IT HAPPENED WHEN I WAS ABOUT FIFTEEN AND MY FAMILY WENT TO SEE MARTIN ST JAMES PERFORM. ST JAMES WAS AN AUSTRALIAN WHO TOURED HIS STAGE HYPNOSIS ACT INTERNATIONALLY FOR DECADES. DURING THE COURSE OF THE SHOW HE WOULD CALL GROUPS OF PEOPLE UP FROM THE AUDIENCE, SOMETIMES FORTY AT A TIME. HE WOULD HYPNOTISE THEM (SENDING BACK TO THEIR SEATS THE ONES WHO DIDN’T GO UNDER) AND DIRECT THEM TO DO ALL SORTS OF SILLY THINGS FOR THE AUDIENCE’S AMUSEMENT. JOHN GOT CHOSEN TO GO UP AND PROVED TO BE A GOOD SUBJECT.
Going through the motions of being a chicken laying an egg was a St James perennial. John got away without having to do that. Instead he did his invisible-appliance repair, he sang like an over-the-top pop star, and he ‘became’ a Rocky-style boxer, bouncing around punching the air every time he heard a bell like the one that signals the rounds of a boxing match. None of those are things he would have done in normal life at home, let alone in front of hundreds of strangers. I was intrigued by it and even more so when John talked about the experience afterwards. He wasn’t embarrassed about the disappearance of his inhibitions. He said, ‘I knew exactly what I was doing but I had an overwhelming need to do it.’
Over the next few years I read up on hypnotism but I didn’t take my interest any further. I knew that a successful hypnotist has to have an air of authority about them — I was still too much of a kid to have that, so I waited until I was nineteen and felt I was old enough to pull it off. When the time came I searched through the Yellow Pages for someone who could teach me the technique. There was no such thing as a stage-hypnotism course. The only hypnotists listed were those who used it clinically, to help people quit smoking or lose weight. I called a number of them explaining what I was after. I was upfront about being a performer. I knew that some clinical practitioners disapproved of people who used it onstage and I didn’t want to mislead them as to my intentions. I got a whole lot of ‘no’s before I finally found a hypnotist named Brian Lockwood Gunst who ran a short course.
There were only three of us in the class. One wanted to practise clinically. The other was Kevin Grisé, who became a good friend. Kevin had previously practised clinical hypnotism but wanted to extend his skills for the stage (he went on to develop a very successful comedy hypnotism act that has made him a hit with corporate audiences). Our first lesson began with some introductory talk before Brian set about hypnotising us. It was the first time I’d experienced hypnotism but it felt very similar to the way John described it. It’s not that your brain is shut off so you can be moved around like a chess piece. You’re aware of what’s happening but you are completely relaxed — mentally as well as physically. It is, in fact, incredibly restful. You come out of a fifteen-minute hypnosis session feeling like you’ve had two hours of perfect sleep. (I haven’t done guided meditation but the techniques it uses and the process of letting go of extraneous thoughts sound very similar.)
The course reinforced what I’d read in the books: it’s impossible to hypnotise anyone who does not want to be hypnotised. Basically all hypnosis is self-hypnosis. By going under you’re agreeing to allow yourself to be swayed by the power of suggestion.
Induction is the name given to the process of leading someone into a hypnotic state. It begins with the body. The classic old cheesy movie hypnotist uses a swaying pocket watch to focus their subject’s attention while intoning, ‘You are feeling very sleepy.’ Guess what? That actually works, but so does staring at a candle flame, preferably one that’s slightly raised so you have to lift your eyes (not your whole head) to see it. Keeping the gaze glued to something, be it a watch or a flame, tires the eyes. It makes it easy to feel agreement with the hypnotist’s suggestion: ‘Your eyelids are getting very heavy.’ The person being hypnotised is agreeing to let go but any niggling distractions or concerns will pull them out of the moment. That’s why the classic how-to books give advice to would-be hypnotists such as, ‘Make sure you’re well groomed, with neatly clipped nails and well-shined shoes.’ It’s all about creating an authoritative, commanding presence so the subject feels they are in safe hands and can relax completely.
What the hypnotist says during an induction is important but it’s not nearly as important as the way they say it. Both words and tone have to be smooth and clear. Stumbling, hesitation or rambling will yank the subject out of their relaxed state. Like anything else, getting this right takes practice. Luckily I had a willing subject on hand, in the form of Adam. Many nights back in our accommodation after the school shows I practised on him until I was confident my delivery flowed easily.
As subjects go under you’ll often see stage hypnotists telling them that their hands are bound together with rope or stuck with superglue and no matter how hard they try t
hey can’t pull their palms apart. This is part of the hypnotist’s test to see how willing each person is to go along with suggestion. You’ll sometimes hear people say it’s a sign of a weak mind if you can be hypnotised. In fact, it’s just the opposite. The stronger and more vivid your imagination, the more likely you are to respond to suggestion: having no shred of doubt that your hands are cemented in place.
The culmination of the instructional course was a test where we put into practice what we’d learned, using strangers as our subjects. Brian had a stall at an annual Mind, Body, Soul exhibition and our test subjects would be visitors who happened to be wandering past and were willing to be hypnotised — the fact that they’d been drawn to this kind of exhibition meant they were likely to be receptive to the idea. I heeded the books’ advice about appearance and instead of my usual t-shirt and jeans I wore a black skivvy, cream slacks and dress shoes, plus my reading glasses. But the biggest change was to my hair. It was bleached blond and normally I wore it either spiked up all over or pushed up into a ‘faux-hawk’. For this event I skipped the gel and combed it neatly. There was nothing in my toned-down look that might distract my subjects from sinking into a hypnotic state.
The three of us who’d done the course each got multiple chances to show what we could do. The first step was to get the subject sitting comfortably looking up at a slight angle to focus on a candle flame. All the training I’d done with Adam helped me deliver the verbal instructions fairly smoothly: ‘I want you to take a deep breath in. Now breathe out and relax. Put your feet flat down on the floor. Relax your muscles,’ and so on.
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There were no big stage-hypnosis games; instead we simply had to prove we’d succeeded in hypnotising our subjects by convincing them that their arms were attached to balloons and were floating up, or they were as stiff as wooden boards, or their fingers were locked together with superglue. Despite my practising I was still quite nervous trying it on strangers for the first time and not everyone responded to my induction. But enough did for me to pass and I got my Diploma of Clinical Hypnotherapy.
So, as an accredited practitioner, let me bust a few myths. If you’ve ever worried that someone with the right skills could just stare at you intensely or click their fingers and that would be enough to hypnotise you, worry no more. It can’t happen. You will sometimes see something that looks very like that taking place in TV shows (including, in recent years, one of mine) but those subjects have been pre-conditioned. Pre-conditioning means that the hypnotist has spent up to thirty minutes working with the subject before the cameras roll, doing the induction and responsiveness tests and setting up a key such as, ‘When I snap my fingers you will fall straight asleep.’ Or, ‘When I look into your eyes and squint, you will have the urge to fall asleep. In fact, you will have an overwhelming urge to fall asleep. And when you go to sleep, it will feel so fantastic. It will be the best feeling ever.’ The subject stays in a quiet place where they can remain deeply relaxed. When it’s time for them to come up onstage they appear completely unaffected, but all that work beforehand means that a simple finger-click or look is enough to send them into a hypnotic state. It’s a bit of a magic trick in its own way.
You might wonder if that means someone who was either pre-conditioned or actually hypnotised would be permanently stuck that way if their hypnotist met a sudden end before bringing them out of that state. Nope. That only applies to fictional characters cast under a spell. In real life the subject would simply emerge from their hyper-relaxed state quite naturally.
The final myth is the belief that there is a kind of hypnosis so deep it amounts to brainwashing, leaving the subject unaware that something has been done to them. Perhaps the best-known example of this is the novel and subsequent film The Manchurian Candidate, where a soldier has a trigger implanted deep in his subconscious that will turn him into an assassin years later. All it takes is for him to see the queen of diamonds and he becomes a pre-programmed automaton. It’s a neat plot idea for fiction, but in truth you simply can’t make someone do something under hypnosis that is against their basic values. (There are plenty of conspiracy theories about achieving that kind of result using psychotropic drugs, but that’s not what we’re talking about here.)
State Library of Victoria PC115/B (inset); Shutterstock / Family Business (background)
Hang on a minute, you might think, John wouldn’t normally get up onstage and start acting like a heavyweight champion, nor would all those other people lay imaginary eggs. That’s true, but no aspect of what they’re doing conflicts with their internal moral compass. It might not be something they would usually do, indeed it might be something they couldn’t imagine themselves doing in any other circumstances, but it’s not something they regard as wrong. At least one well-known performer who uses hypnotism as part of their act has claimed to show that an implanted suggestion can make someone do something they feel very guilty about afterwards, for instance, committing a (staged) robbery. He insists that the people featured are not stooges or actors. That’s not for me to comment on, but I will repeat with complete certainty that the only thing hypnotism can do in terms of behaviour is loosen inhibitions; it cannot make someone do something they don’t want to.
Inhibition-loosening wasn’t exactly appropriate for school kids so I had no immediate outlet for my newly acquired hypnotism skills, but as ever my eyes were on the future. One day I’d be able to build a magic routine around hypnotism and when that time came I’d be ready. I was always thinking about ways to make the act more impressive. It was an ongoing debate between Adam and me. He felt we should keep it small and well-contained in order to make it more cost-effective, while I was always pushing for bigger and more elaborate. Adam’s view was that in our current position it was more strategic to conserve our resources; when we got the chance to take the next step up the professional ladder then we could change our approach. I thought it needed to work the other way around: we’d never make it up the ladder if the show didn’t grow and change.
I couldn’t deny the logic of Adam’s reasoning. Magic is expensive at the best of times thanks to the cost of disposables such as silks, never mind custom-made illusion apparatus. When we added in travel and accommodation costs, we were making only subsistence wages from the school shows. He continued to try to persuade me to change my mind but, to his enormous credit, never wavered in his support of me when I continued to disagree.
Karen, the assistant who had come in for the showreel and done some Year 6 graduations with us, was heading overseas. There weren’t any shows on the horizon in which we could afford to use an assistant but, in keeping with my views about readiness, we set about finding a replacement for her. Bianca was a distant family connection, the cousin of one of our cousins, and a ballroom dancer with the necessary movement skills. We hired her to come along every Sunday night to learn the act and continue to rehearse it.
I kept my eye open for opportunities and one day in a large local shopping centre during school holidays I saw something that made me think. There was a family entertainment show on the stage in the middle of the centre, one of a series taking place over the couple of weeks of the break. It was one of the fairly ordinary shows you often see in those centres with licensed characters familiar from TV shows (in this case Scooby Doo) acting out a basic storyline, but it had quite a large backdrop and a reasonably sophisticated set-up. I felt sure that with all the work Bianca, Adam and I had been putting in, ‘The Magic of Cosentino’ could work very well in that context.
I was twenty-one years old and, never having set foot on a ship before, I was about to go aboard this one as its youngest ever headliner.
We looked into it and learned that there were specialist booking agencies just for shopping centre entertainment. We researched their contact details and sent letters and flyers out. This time we got a response. A company called Showtime Attractions wanted to see the showreel and meet with us. They liked what they saw and o
ffered to represent us. They started us on shows in rural areas outside Melbourne in smaller, independently owned shopping centres. When the feedback was good they booked us into the Westfield-owned Fountain Gate mega-mall (Australia’s largest shopping centre by floor space). It was a thirty-minute Sunday afternoon gig but it was unpaid — it would serve as a tester so reps from the agency and centre management could come along and see what they thought.
As it happens, Fountain Gate is less than fifteen minutes’ drive from our parents’ house. We got the word out and family and friends turned out in force, adding to the crowd of passers-by to make an audience of around five hundred. I used material from my competition acts, going from classical to modern, making doves appear and the rabbit disappear — all very visual pieces that I knew would work well in a noisy mall environment. It was a great show and drew a big response. Everyone was happy and we now had the shopping centre circuit as an additional string to our bow — the beginning of an arrangement that would last for the next eight years.
The centre jobs were a step up from schools in that they paid better, we only had to put on a thirty-minute rather than a fifty-minute show, and even if we performed multiple shows a day there was only one set-up and one pack-up with no travelling in between. But this work could only be a supplement to our schools work, not a replacement for it, because it was only on offer during school holidays. Even if you were booked for the maximum number of jobs in the maximum number of shopping centres, that was only fourteen weeks’ work a year.