I was performing for a group of people the other day and I said something and someone yelled out, "Well, your a magician of course we can't trust you." Now I just laughed this off and continued but I didn't how I should take it. Should I take it as a compliment that the audience thinks that highly of me? Or, should I take it as I did a bad job of earning their trust or what? I just don't know how I feel about this. Personally, I kinda like the mysterious untrusting con-artist type style, but what do you guys think about what the spectator said?
Trust?
- Thread starter MagicofAdam
- Start date
Usually, people just mean that as a joke. It doesn't mean that they're gonna be super on-guard around you or they won't trust you, it just means that they think you're good. 
The more you perform, the wittier you'll get regarding "heckler" remarks, although I wouldn't consider that heckling. I probably wouldn't have left it open ended because regardless of a joke or not, if unchallenged it leaves a slight "taint" in a person's mind. What I mean by that is because the comment was apparently accepted, people will go on believing you're not trustworthy if only just slightly in the back of their minds, and that's never good for a performance.
An easy trusting audience are what give the best reactions. Respond in a joke or even embrace the comment by performing a quick impomptu flourish/trick. Do something to acknowledge the comment. But by not saying nothing and continuing, it sort of ruins the momentum of any routine and adds a slight tension.
An easy trusting audience are what give the best reactions. Respond in a joke or even embrace the comment by performing a quick impomptu flourish/trick. Do something to acknowledge the comment. But by not saying nothing and continuing, it sort of ruins the momentum of any routine and adds a slight tension.
Any time I have ever had that remark made to me it has been done so in a "playful" manner because the audience knows that clearly I can make things "seem" fair yet they probably are not. I also laugh it off and am smile really big back at them. As mentioned before, the more you perform you will learn how to field remarks and comments and throw funny one liners back at them, in a playful way of course.
I was about 19 I guess and in Las Vegas. I'd just done a pick-pocket routine and was back stage when my friend Peter pulled me over to meet a certain gent by the name of Liberace. As I reached my hand out to shake his he suddenly drew it back exclaiming, "I just saw your act, there's more than a million dollars in diamonds on that hand, you think I'm a fool?!"
Of course he then started laughing and ended up giving me a hug and compliments, but more than anything he gave me a wonderful memory.
Even when I was in the Navy there was the joke that I wasn't allowed to play poker with the guys because I was too good at doing magic (little did they know how bad I was when it came to card tricks).
The point is, this is a very common pun people have when they know you do magic. I've put up with it since the early 1970s at least. But, there's a very interesting thing to all of this; when I shifted away from magic altogether and focused only on Mentalism, that kind of teasing was replaced with psychic type gags... "What's the weather going to be tomorrow?" "Which team is going to win the ___ Bowl?" and so on.
I really doubt that there's a trade that doesn't have such silliness tied to it, as show people however, we're just more susceptible to it.
Of course he then started laughing and ended up giving me a hug and compliments, but more than anything he gave me a wonderful memory.
Even when I was in the Navy there was the joke that I wasn't allowed to play poker with the guys because I was too good at doing magic (little did they know how bad I was when it came to card tricks).
The point is, this is a very common pun people have when they know you do magic. I've put up with it since the early 1970s at least. But, there's a very interesting thing to all of this; when I shifted away from magic altogether and focused only on Mentalism, that kind of teasing was replaced with psychic type gags... "What's the weather going to be tomorrow?" "Which team is going to win the ___ Bowl?" and so on.
I really doubt that there's a trade that doesn't have such silliness tied to it, as show people however, we're just more susceptible to it.