Rule 22: Do What's Right for You
In 1911 Nevil Maskelyne and David Devant, two of the premier magicians of the day, published Our Magic. In the first section, The Art in Magic, Maskelyne outlines 24 rules for magic performance. After well over 100 years, are these rules still relevant, and do they apply to more than magic
22: No magician should ever present, in public, any magical feat in which the procedure cannot be, or has not been adapted to his own personal characteristics and abilities.
Here, Nevil Maskelyne is warning us that if you’re going to perform something created by someone else then you should be able to:
Be a good enough actor to perform it
and
Have the required skill level to complete it
If you don’t, you need to change it. This will make it as good as possible for you. Put simply, this rule is telling you to make sure you can actually pull off the performance you’re considering attempting. If not, be realistic and change it.
However, there is a second way of reading this that’s become far more relevant in our more homogenised world of corporate culture and mass-produced material: Make it your own!
Bluntly, I understand why people do things in the same way as others. It if worked for them, it should work for you. A lot of the time, that’s actually right. However, let us remind ourselves that we are reading the *Art* of Magic. These are the rules that are designed to elevate your performance to that of art, something you may or may not want to strive for. Not wanting to is absolutely fine, but for those who are trying to bring something more to their performances, the best thing they can bring is something of themselves. No matter how efficient or well done your presentation is, without molding it to yourself it will always lack a certain level of anima, and your audiences will pick up on that.
TFT
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