Rule 23: Cheques Your Body Can't Cash
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?
23: Never attempt, in public, anything that cannot be performed with the utmost ease, in private.
Before we start on this rule let me stress that, although it may seem to be, it is not necessarily about practice. Though a thorough reading of the whole text does imply that Maskelyne is thinking strongly about practicing over and over, it’s vital to understand what that might mean, and also why.
So, firstly, why? When talking about this rule the justification used is this:
““There is, however, one point upon which no question can be raised, and no dispute is possible. That is, no matter how great may be the natural ability of any man, he can only achieve artistic success by means of great and persistent effort.””
Few people would dispute this, but does that mean a trick can only be great if practiced 1,000 times? Orson Welles told a fascinating story about his lessons with the magician Houdini. Houdini would tell him you have to practice a trick a thousand times before you perform it. One day, backstage, someone arrived and told Houdini that they had a brand new trick for him to perform. “Fine, I’ll put it in the show tonight.” What Orson learned was that you don’t practice tricks, you practice sleights. You need to know and understand the tools at your disposal, but rather than this rule alluding to the next (practice), it’s more of a distillation of the previous one: be sure you’re capable of doing what you intend to do. Houdini was, without a doubt, a giant in magic and a master performer. Though he may not have known the exact working of the trick, he did know how to play to an audience. That is the skill he was supremely confident in, that was what he could do with ‘the utmost ease’. He was also a dedicated and professional magician. Though he may never have seen the exact workings or principle of this trick before, he would have had enough experience to understand it very, very quickly.
Rather than reading this rule as being purely about practice - which makes even more sense when you realise that the next (and final) rule is solely rehearsal, and has an entire chapter dedicated to it - instead see it as a warning against hubris.
There is an old adage, ‘it’ll be alright on the night’. This rule is in direct contrast to it. What is being suggested in the rule, and stated in its explanation, is that a performer who believes they'll be able to get it right on the night, despite their past history, is one setting themselves up to fail.
When reading this rule it’s important to remind ourselves again that this book is aimed at those attempting to elevate their performance to the next level. As that is the case, some of what’s written makes the assumption that the reader is not a complete novice, that they will have some experience performing, what we would call ‘flight time’. This creates something of a Catch-22 situation: How can you know something is going to work in public, if you have little or no experience performing in public? The simple answer is: you don’t. But that’s okay. Great performance takes time and work or, as Maskelyne himself puts it, “great and persistent effort”. You’re not going to be able to implement this rule until you’ve put in the hours.
Sorry, I said I could give insights into great performance, not easy shortcuts or simple steps. I save that kind of promise for the hucksters.