Anything is Possible Read online

  Dad drove me, with all the gear in a trailer. He and Adam helped me set up and once again Adam assisted me onstage. It started out all right but it wasn’t too long before I realised something was off; I’d lost most of the audience. The people near the stage looked like they were enjoying it, but the crowd as a whole just wasn’t responding. When it was over the family members who had bought tickets came up to see me. They said the act looked good but they really hadn’t been able to hear anything other than noisy dinner sounds.

  Performing my winning routine in the Parlour Room Magic competition at AdMagicCon 1997.

  Cosentino family collection

  Although the venue had organised the stage and lighting they’d asked us to bring our own sound gear. We’d borrowed a microphone from Mum’s school. It plugged into a little portable amp and the music was played on a ghetto blaster. The venue organisers were perfectly nice about it all but it was cringeworthy to know that I hadn’t delivered the entertaining experience that had been promised. Using some of my hard-saved money, Adam and I went out the next day and bought decent speakers and a portable mixing board. I was still just a kid, really, but I realised then and there that it was my responsibility as an entertainer to be professional, which meant taking care of all the details. Lesson learned.

  Surprisingly, I landed another gig, this one from a gentleman who had seen me at the Italian club — and happened to have been sitting within earshot. He worked for the Department of Education and had a big event coming up for which he thought I might be perfect. It was at the Forum Theatre and it was designed to encourage senior high school students to continue with their language studies. I was now in Year 11 and aged sixteen; they would either be my age or just slightly older. Students of particular languages would get a performance tailored around that language. He wanted me to do first the French group then the Italian.

  The students, who came from schools all around Melbourne including my own, would hear from educators about why language study was beneficial, then there would be a play and a cooking lesson, both in the relevant language, then I’d do my act.

  I themed the first performance around a French café, starting out in a top hat and tails with Adam dressed like a French waiter and a soundtrack of French music. I made the French flag appear and suspended water in an upturned glass and had a trick with candles which led to me eating fire. Then with a quick change of music and the flag we did the same thing again but this time set in an Italian café.

  There were hundreds of kids there for each show and they went nuts, they absolutely loved it. John had come to help us set up and pack up afterwards. It was the first time he’d seen me do the act in front of an audience. He was a bit surprised by the strength of the response, but it was what happened afterwards that really gave him pause. We walked outside to leave and all the buses were lined up getting ready to take the students back to their schools. Spotting me, the kids started banging on the windows and calling out. John said to Adam in amazement, ‘What’s going on? He just did a magic act; they’re carrying on like he’s the Beatles!’

  It was a very special moment for me and all the sweeter for being able to share it with my brothers. It also felt like the beginning of something new although at that stage I wasn’t thinking about performing as a career. Magic, as much as I loved it, was more about having fun and challenging myself. It was also a way of earning some spending money that was a lot more enjoyable than pulling shifts behind the counter at a fast-food joint. It was assumed by everyone, including me, that I would go to university. I hadn’t really decided what I wanted to focus on but I figured I’d probably do some kind of business degree. It would be almost three more years before I made the leap of faith in trying to make a living from magic.

  That year, 1999, David Copperfield toured again, this time playing the Regent Theatre. It was a very different experience from the one I’d had three years earlier. This time I lined up at the ticket outlet hours before it opened on the first day of sales and scored front-row seats. John was busy making his life with Jilda, but Adam, Mum, Dad and I all went. I was even more in awe of Copperfield’s showmanship this time round. He delivered a spectacle, including taking people from the audience and making them vanish in a burst of flames. I had a pretty good idea how many of the illusions worked by now but there were still some I couldn’t figure out. He had famously spent seven years working out how to fly onstage and even from my prime position I could not see how it was done.

  I’d brought along a note in which I’d explained that I was a young magician and said how much I looked up to and was inspired by him. I’d intended to give it to one of the security staff and ask them to pass it on to the man himself. But his parents were watching the show just a few seats along the row from us — I recognised his dad from interviews they’d done together. So I approached them at the end of the show and they kindly agreed to give it to their famous son. I’d put my name and address on the envelope and in due course he sent me an autographed picture. Beginning a tradition, I framed the picture along with the tickets. It was a nice addition to my personal museum.

  Lindi Jane told me that it was clear I was making the most of the opportunities I was getting and that she’d given me pretty much all the advice she could. But she did one more thing for me, she introduced me to the people at her schools booking agency. They specialised in booking shows from all sorts of performers into primary and high schools, public and private, across Victoria and Tasmania. They liked what I had to offer and put me on their books. They said they could get me work straight away and I said great, as long as it was in Melbourne and didn’t require me to take too much time off school — after all, I was in Year 11 with a heavy study load. They were fine with that and booked me in to a local primary school.

  Adam and I had been thinking about how to make the act more visual, more theatrical, and we came up with the idea of creating backdrops that could be easily transported and quickly put up in any kind of space. We designed a light vertical frame holding up a rod that would act like the spine of a book. The lightweight canvas backdrops would be attached to the rod in a way that allowed us to flip them over one by one, the way you would with pages. Each backdrop would show a different scene tied in to a different part of the show, particularly the Time Warp act. Our cousin Mark was a gifted artist and he hand-painted the scenes for us: a nostalgic street scene for ‘Singin’ in the Rain’, a 1950s diner for the Grease number, then a disco and finally a futuristic space image.

  By making most of it and strategically buying the rest we now had enough equipment to need a van, so we hired one specially and Dad took time out to drive Adam and me to our first school show. It was a good one to start on. We had an audience from Prep (kindy) and Year 1 who loved the visuals and the music, laughed at the wigs and the silly bits of business, oohed and aahed at the tricks and screeched at the alien mask. It was a big hit with both kids and teachers. Having received excellent feedback, the agency was happy to keep sending me out whenever they could find a gig that fitted within my geographic and timetable limitations.

  I had to be very focused and disciplined to manage my very full schedule: keep my magic skills up to scratch; stay on top of a big study load, including one Year 12 subject, Psychology, that would go towards my VCE (which determined my university entrance mark); do the jobs I was required to take care of around the house and garden; see the girl I’d started going out with; and spend time with my friends. It was obvious to me that my mindset was very different to most kids my age. I’d go to parties or go out in town and see people getting drunk or acting like idiots. That wasn’t my idea of a good time. I didn’t want to be out of control, I wanted to stay sharp and get a lot done. I also wanted to save all the money I could to spend on magic supplies. There was strong peer pressure to join in the partying but it wasn’t directed at me. Everyone accepted that I was different in all sorts of ways and that was one of them; somehow it was cool. Plus they got to have me as the designated driver
— a win–win.

  What a change it was from the way I’d been treated and had felt about myself just a few years earlier. The recognition I got from performing magic had given me the confidence to embrace the fact that I didn’t fit the mould. I felt comfortable in my choices, from my spiky blond hair to the individual, often retro, fashion style I preferred over the look of the moment.

  When I needed a break from study I would fiddle with one of my ever-present decks of cards or allow myself daydreaming time to think of illusions or tricks I’d like to do, or read a little on the theory and history of magic. I also kept an eye out for new and interesting things happening in the world of performance. One was Cirque du Soleil. These days the Cirque is a huge international business, playing in many countries simultaneously, but at the time it was still building its reputation. The first Cirque tour to Australia had been scheduled with the show Saltimbanco and a TV special was aired as part of the pre-ticket sales promotion. I watched it with my family and we all decided it was so brilliant we had to see the show live. Then at the end of the special up came a notice saying they were looking for new acts, with a fax number for Cirque’s headquarters in Montreal where you could get more information.

  We faxed off for the details and, when requested, I sent in an audition application detailing my experience and awards and skills. They’d explained that they weren’t looking to cast a certain number of roles or employ a specific number of people, they were scouting for talent: if they found people they liked they might either offer them a position immediately or put them on the books as an artist to be called on when the right show came around.

  I was thrilled when a fax came through letting me know I’d been given a place in the auditions which would happen while the circus was in Australia, but my heart sank when I checked the date. It was the very day and time of my VCE Psychology exam. I’d have been able to make any other day, but I couldn’t blow off a VCE test. We got back to them and explained this, fearing they might just say ‘Quel dommage, au revoir’. Instead they agreed to let me skip the first part of the audition and just do the second. Adam and my parents and I went to see Saltimbanco live and it blew my mind the way David Copperfield had: it was knockout entertainment. I’d have felt that way even if I hadn’t been buzzing with excitement knowing that I was soon going to audition for them, but that definitely added to the electricity.

  It was very hard to focus on my exam knowing that the second it was over, when all my classmates were flopping on the grass outside coming down from the stress, I had to jump in Mum’s waiting car and race over to the dance studio where the auditions were being held. I didn’t even have time to change out of my school uniform. When I arrived I signed in, quickly changed and was given a number to pin to my t-shirt: 72. Things were in full swing, with people doing exercises on command while the Cirque staff conferred. Unlucky auditioners would get a tap on the shoulder indicating they’d been eliminated and the rest would make it through to the next exercise. People with skills across the spectrum were being auditioned together but it was instantly obvious that there were some very, very talented acrobats and dancers and actors among them. I was the youngest person there and even though I’d done quite a lot of performing by this point I felt very green in this context.

  Clearly a lot of people had been knocked out before I got there; fewer than twenty remained. I joined in the next task, which was a group tableau/interpretive dance number. Then we had to split into groups and move like animals: tiger, switch, chicken, switch, dog, switch . . . Everything was filmed and the movement exercises came thick and fast, with handsprings and cartwheels and front saltos (flips) in between them — seeing people who were charismatic actors get knocked out when they couldn’t perform these moves made me very glad I’d taken gymnastics as an elective school subject. More people got knocked out and I waited nervously for the tap to tell me I was out too.

  Finally there were just five of us left, at which point we each had to do a three-minute prepared performance of our specialty skill. There was juggling, dancing, tumbling — it was all very impressive. Then it was my turn. I could only use whatever I could carry, none of the illusion apparatus I generally had in my act. But I knew that wouldn’t have been right in this context anyway, because at the time Cirque did not feature any magic acts as such (that’s changed since). They were interested in me because I was something different. So my three-minute piece featured plenty of dancing and movement, fire-eating, and tricks such as linking rings. They seemed to absolutely love it.

  After each performance the audition panel asked a few questions. After a little bit of ‘getting to know you’ chat they said, ‘If you had to choose between magic and dance, which would you pick?’ In a way, I guess you could see this as a trick question since, as I knew, they weren’t casting magicians. But I answered from the heart, ‘Magic.’ I couldn’t do otherwise, even if it put me at a disadvantage.

  A couple of weeks later, as promised, they called. While they weren’t offering me a position immediately, they said they liked what I had to offer enough to consider me as a potential ‘artist resource’, which meant they would put me on the list of people who would get called in if and when a suitable opportunity arose. I was initially disappointed at not getting an offer until I realised I’d been given what was essentially a big tick of approval from a world- class entertainment franchise. I was even more gratified when I found out that of all the hundreds of performers they had auditioned around the country only myself and one other person, an acrobat, had been put on the list. People in the magic community heard about it and started to take notice of me.

  Cirque’s vote of confidence was a major boost and took me a step closer to my future. It also didn’t take me long to realise that if I had been picked up by Cirque I would have been locked into their five-year contract and moulded to fit the larger act. Instead I could continue to trust my instincts and forge my own path into the future.

  Wilson Du

  THE DAVENPORT BROTHERS

  In 1852, just a few years after the Fox Sisters had kicked off the Spiritualism craze that spread from America to Europe and beyond, two other siblings from New York state appeared on the scene claiming supernatural powers. Ira and William Davenport began by giving simple séances in darkened rooms in which they apparently remained seated and ‘brought forth spirits’ who played musical instruments placed nearby. This worked for a few years until a well-timed lamp revealed the Davenport boys out of their chairs, instruments in hand. Oops. From our perspective it seems utterly ridiculous that anyone could have believed them for a moment but the hunger for contact with departed loved ones was intense in the Victorian era. In fact, it was so strong that the brothers went on to do a new version of the act, which was a hit in America. But from the moment they arrived in England in 1864 sceptics tried to prove they were fakes. Weirdly enough, the controversy and the unmasking of their methods by Egyptian Hall’s John Nevil Maskelyne only increased the number of tickets sold! They went on to perform throughout Europe, India, New Zealand and Australia.

  William died of tuberculosis in Sydney in 1877 and was buried at Rookwood Cemetery. In 1910 Houdini paid his respects at the grave and back in America visited with the elderly Ira. According to Houdini, Ira revealed the brothers’ knot-release secrets and appointed him as their successor. Houdini seems to have felt so honoured he gave the Davenports an easy out in his 1924 book A Magician among the Spirits, sparing them from the withering scorn he poured on the other famous ‘spiritualists’.

  Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW a14214046 / P1/446 (left); Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW a14214047 / P1/447 (right)

  Cosentino family collection

  Your audience can always, always, tell if you genuinely love what you do. The DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SOMEONE GOING THROUGH THE MOTIONS AND SOMEONE GIVING IT THEIR ALL IS AS CLEAR AS NIGHT AND DAY. IF YOU LOVE YOUR ARTFORM AND RESPECT YOUR AUDIENCE, WHAT WOULD OTHERWISE BE A STRAIGHTFORWARD ROUTINE TURNS INTO SOMET
HING MAGICAL. IT’S THE TRANSFORMATIVE ALCHEMY THAT MAKES LIVE PERFORMANCE SO SPECIAL.

  I learned this through early experience. In 2000, I was in Year 12, studying hard for my final exams, but I was also continuing to pick up performing work and I got a call from a promotions agency looking for people to do a roving act in a shopping centre. Mobile phones were becoming widespread and the client, Orange Telecommunications, was one of the many companies trying to make headway with consumers. The idea was that circus-style performers and magicians dressed in Orange-branded t-shirts would walk around among the crowds of shoppers doing tricks in an attempt to create a buzz and draw customers in to the company’s shop. Asking around about suitable talent, the agency had been given my name.

  It was nice to get a call out of the blue, but when the agent explained the client wanted a lot of close-up magic I said, ‘Oh, that’s not really my thing.’ That provoked quite an angry response: ‘You don’t want this opportunity? You’re going to give up all this money?’ A bit taken aback, I agreed to go along to the audition. I did a trimmed down version of my act, with dance moves, card tricks and throwing the lights. I got the job, which meant going to places like Epping Plaza, Fountain Gate and Melbourne Central on Thursday nights and all day Saturdays. I wore a mask and mimed my act, and it went over well. In theory it was easy, fun work, but in reality it was draining. Some people in shopping centres are happy to be entertained but many just want to get where they’re going and they become instantly suspicious if they think they’re being approached by someone selling something. Our job was just to get people to the stand, not actually flog the phones, but even so I never felt quite right doing it.