Magic Magazine Reviews Seriously Silly

By Michael Close

David Kaye is the real deal. He has been a professional children's entertainer for more than 18 years, and during that time he has performed more than 7,000 shows. His "Turn it Around" column has appeared in MAGIC for five years. He has been featured on the covers of both MAGIC and Genii. David has now assembled his thoughts on kid's show magic in a marvelous book titled Seriously Silly. This book may well become the definitive resource on this type of magic.

The magic marketplace has seen the release of many books, videos, and DVDs that teach routines suitable for an audience of children. David Kaye's approach is different. Rather than "giving you fish," he wants to "teach you to fish." He writes, "Rather than just teaching you my favorite routines, I will teach you concepts about performing for kids that will stand you in good stead for a lifetime. Rather than concentrating on specific routines and patter, I'll emphasize my theories and principles. These will help you approach any new trick (even those intended for adult audi- ences) with the knowledge of what reallv entertains children. These principles will help you create your own powerful routines that fit your style. And when you learn another magi- cian's routine from a book or video, you will be able to personalize it and make it even more entertaining." I very much like this approach to teaching magic. Very few magi- cians understand what is involved in creating or adapting material, because most of the time they are only given the finished product; they have no idea what decisions were made during the creative process. David Kaye offers general principles that can be applied to any routine. He also offers finished routines complete with analyses that show how the various concepts have been utilized. This is the perfect combi- nation of the theoretical and the practical.

Seriously Silly begins with an examination of some of the challenges of performing for children. David writes, "Though technically simple, performing children's magic requires more than ownership of the usual props. You must have an understanding of children, including their intellectual and verbal skills. You have to understand their psychology. You have to know what makes them laugh and how to keep their attention. You must be lik- able, funny, and non-threatening. And you must be able to improvise rather than follow a rigid script." The biggest problem is that "chil- dren are not adults. If you attempt to design a children's show using your adult sensibilities. you will fail. Children's brains are different Ñ they don't think like adults. Therefore, chil , dren react to magic tricks in a completely dif ferent way." Complicating this is the fact that children in different age groups respond differ ently to the magic they see. A kid's show per former must adapt his material to the age of his audience. This concept is thoroughly cov ered in later chapters. This chapter concludes with an examine of the different between kid's show magic in England (which evolved from Pantomime Theater and Punch & Judy) and kid's show magic in the United States (which evolved from gospel magic).

The second major section of Seriously Silly is titled "The Psychology of Performing Magic for Children." David begins by asking (and answering) the question, "What is magic to a child?" It is important to answer this question, because there is so much in a child's life that could easily be interpreted as magical [a televi sion, a cell phone, a DVD player), but which is merely viewed as commonplace. "The best magic for adult audiences uses props that are familiar to them... Approach your kid shows in the same way. Use props that children rec ognize such as a coloring hook, an American flag, and a pitcher of milk."

David discusses ten steps to understanding children's magic, including such valuable sug gestions as: speak to children as you would an adulct emphasize the entertainment over the effect, go with the flow and be willing to go off script, explain the plot and keep plots sim ple. Each of the ten points is given a thorough analysis. David then examines how to modify a presentation for three different age groups: ages 3-6, ages 7-9, and ages 10-13. To rein- force this information, David gives three rou- tines for the same effect, The Vanishing Silk. The presentation of each routine is geared toward one of the three age groups. This section concludes with information on how to maximize a child volunteer.

Part Three, How to Routine Magical Effects for Children, contains a serious amount of "meat." The underlying theme of this sec tion is that, for children watching a magic show, it is the journey and not the destination that is important. All magic routines consist of a beginning, middle, and end. For the chil dren's show performer, the stuff that happens in the middle is most important. (This also applies to stand-up comedy magic. Mac King's show would be 15 minutes long without all the wonderful bits of business that occur dur ing the middles of the routines.) David offers six broad suggestions for beefing up the mid- dle of a routine - including adding comedy ele ments, empowering elements, and storytelling elements. These are not brief suggestions; they are full-blown examinations of each topic. Each topic is accompanied by a fully-scripted routine that illustrates the techniques used.

Part Four, Solving the Problems of Performing for Children, may well he rthe most valuable section for the would-be kid's show performer. David writes, "To perform a perfect show you need two things, 1) a great act, and 2) control over your environment... The more disractions that exist during a per formance, the harder it is to execute a perfect show. In order to do your best show, you have to reduce the number of distractions as much as you can. If you reduce the number of dis tractions to zero, you will do the best show possible. Any distractions that exist will pre vent you from doing your best. That means keeping the parents quiet, keeping that two- year old out of your hair, turning off the par ents' music, keeping big brother and his friends quiet, and so on." David then offers a general five-step process that will solve any performing problem. He then applies these steps to the top ten problems of the kid's show, performer. This section alone is probably worth the price of admission.

The final section of Serious Silly contains some concluding thoughts. It includes infor mation on the components of a well-struc tured show (Warm-Up, Opening, Body of the Show, and Climax), a discussion of language and pushing the envelope, the importance of power in a child's life, and a challenge to the reader to improve the level of kid's show magic. A very useful Appendix contains infor mation on the cognitive development of a child, a dictionary that translates standard magic terminology into words that a child can understand (prediction = a guess), and tricks that you probably already own that would be suitable for an audience of children.

Scattered throughout the book are short vignettes recounting David Kaye's experiences performing for big celebrities such as Susan Sarandon, David Letterman, Bruce Spring steen, Madonna, and the Sultan of Brunei. At first I found this namedropping to be a bit off- putting, but I asked my very close friends Penn Jillette, Steve Wynn, Jay Leno, and Steven Spielberg if there was really a problem here, and they all said no. So that eliminated the only minor quibble I had with the book.

Seriously Silly is a tremendously valuable book, containing insights that only come from years of performing experience. For the kid's show performer, it is indispensable. Performers in other fields may also find information that can be applied to their audiences. Highly recommended.