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Ricky Jay and His 52
Assistants
 One-Hundred
and fifty seats per show were sold out for the
two-week-straight-one-manned show, Ricky Jay and His 52 Assistants. The
show was aired on HBO more than once. Jay admits that it is meant to be
seen live. Directed by friend David Mamet and written and produced by
himself, the show was a critical and popular success, receiving the
Lucille Lortel and Obie awards. Not only that, but it broke a record as
the fastest selling off-Broadway. The theater advises that the show may
not be appropriate for anyone under 17. This has nothing to do with
content. Jay insists on the seriousness "Magic", he says,
"has been thrown away as just something for kids. If the curtains
opened up and there were 20 kids in the audience, I couldn't do the
show."
The curtains did open and the audience
immediately starts clapping for well-dressed magician with his sleeves
rolled up and nothing else with him but a deck of cards. Jay wears the
jacket of his suit rolled up to the elbows in the style that was briefly
popular in the more dubious discotheques of the 1980s. The set like a
gaming-room office with two shelves on each side covered with old magic
memoir, two doors in the back between them, and an elegant table in the
middle with medieval chairs.
Jay walks up, spreads his cards on the
table and introduces you to his 52 Assistants. "Notice the contrasts
of style and character. They range from ingratiating simplicity to regal
splendor. Some are passive and innerved, others brazing and belligerent.
Some suicidal just like you and me." His
genius, wisdom, and education are the first thing that show. Telling a
story behind each effect, Ricky releases the history, bringing you with
him. Even when he messes up, like we all do, he turns it into comedy.
After showing the same effect three
times; producing four queens, he moves on to an ancient poem by William
Henly. "Boos and the Blowings cop the lot." Ricky describes no
matter if you cheat, con, swindle, or work, women and wine take it all.
This was the introduction to his gambling lecture.
Not only could he cut the cards to all
four aces, but he showed how to second deal, bottom deal, and even dealing
out of the middle of the deck. He even dealt himself a full hand of
Gin-Rummy. The first record of dealing out of the middle of the deck was
in 1933 by a man named Alan Kennedy. Charlie Miller and Canadian Magician
Dai Vernon packed their cards and went to Wichita. Ricky spent over two
decades with these men in his former years learning the art of deception.
They died a few years ago. Miller was 80 and Vernon was 98. You can see
pictures of them on the bookcase of the fin-de-siecle gaming room that
servers the show's sole set.
His next little comedy trick shows that
not all him magic is serious. He has a volunteer select a card and sign
it. After bringing out some mechanical animals to find it, it finally
appears in the middle of a deck in an unopened pack of blue cards. He
performed tricks like Everywhere and Nowhere, found in some of Jean
Hugard's books whereas the selected card appears in a wine glass. A carte
de visite featuring a picture of illusionist Johann Nepmuk Hofzinser is
used in this effect. Then he uses Max Malini's idea of having more than
one card selected. He has eleven or twelve cards selected and finds all of
them in a different way that is close to impossible.
The next part of his show is for show-off
purposes, throwing cards. He through a card up in the air, and upon it's
return, cut it neatly in half with a giant pair of scissors. But that
wasn't the hard part. He killed some plastic drummers and a rubber ducky,
then set off for the watermelon. The 'rich red' inner layer was no
problem, but the 'appie-dermatis outer melon layer' took some work. After
five or so shots, he threw a card into the hard outer layer of the green
watermelon. His last effect was the
cups and balls. Going back to the first trick in the book, he describes
three different versions and even uses Bosco's routine, Charlie's Miller's
version, and the original routine from Hocus Pocus Jr.
You can't deny his skill and knowledge.
After all, he can beat you in poker, change your card's identity, and even
throw a card in a watermelon. This off-Broadway special would have my vote
as a perfect 10. |
