Today, Explained - Do you believe in magic?

Episode Date: October 15, 2020

A Los Angeles magician struck gold with a glorified Zoom meeting. Some are asking if he’s figured out how to save theater. Transcript at vox.com/todayexplained. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Visit connectsontario.ca. It's Today Explained. I'm Sean Ramos-Firm. We've done plenty of shows on how COVID has derailed our lives from working remotely to education to the impacts on all aspects of the economy, rent, sports, the movies. Some of these shows have had elements of hope in them, but none of them have had much magic. Today, we're going to fix that with the story of one guy in Los Angeles who took his pandemic lemons and made lemonade so good that people think he might have figured out a way to save an entire industry. His name is Helder Guimaraes. Yeah, so my line of work is very different than what people imagine when they think about a magician, because I mix stories with magic. The hardest part of a show is putting it up, for me, you know, like, it's always like, where you have to find

all those pieces of the puzzle to put everything together and make it work. And when it's done, when it's finalized, the performance side of it is when I have most of the fun of it. Tell me how you put up your latest show, Helder. So last year, in 2019, I did the show at the Geffen Playhouse. And the goal of 2020 was actually to go with that show to New York. So now I'm like, okay, let's go to New York and have some more fun. And all of a sudden, the pandemic take it away from me. How did that feel? Not good. There was a week during this period that I was like really down. And I was like, I saw the news like almost 24 hours a day.

I'm not the type of person that stays too long on disappointment mode. So I was just like, okay, you know, like now I need to understand what this year is going to be for me. What did you come up with? I had this idea for years of mailing things to people so that people could experience magic in their own hands. Had anyone ever tried that before? Magic by mail? I'm going to probably say a wrong number, but it's a hundred years ago or almost a hundred years ago. There were a couple of experiments done by different people where people would mail an object, like imagine a deck of cards to someone's houses. They would ask them to do a couple of things with that object.

They would do this, they would mail it back to the magician, and then the magician would send a letter saying the card you selected was the seven of spades. Huh. And I've been developing things that fit that world long before I even had a notion that the pandemic could shut everything down. So it was one of those moments where all of a sudden, when I'm one week into quarantine, I was like, oh yeah, this is the perfect moment to use that idea that I've been thinking for years.

I know you're a secretive tribe, but like, can you reveal what the idea is? No, the idea is very simple. Like imagine that now, instead of me doing the magic for you and you see me on screen, I am guiding you to do magic in your own hands with the objects you receive. So the magic literally happens in your own hands. But like you and I are on a Zoom call right now. So when you approach the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles with this idea of magic via Zoom, where you mail people materials, were they like, isn't this just like a video conference version of a YouTube magic instructional video? How is it different? You don't learn how to do magic in my show.

You watch magic and you witness magic. And so the magic happens in your hands, but you have no idea how that magic happens in your hands. You know, like that's a different level. So what do you send people? Well, that I can't tell because it's part of the charm is that they receive a box that they only open at showtime. So they never know what the box has until we start the show. Okay, got it. So the materials are the mystery and you've

sort of pre-designed the magic, but it feels complicated. There are like multiple parties involved and sort of lots of different magic shows happening at once. That means there's lots of variables, right? Like lots could go wrong. Oh yeah, I've done things like that in the past, but always like on a one-to-one basis. I've done amazing things like that

where even objects vanish from people's hands remotely, you know, like, but there is a big difference between doing that to one person or being able to convey that to an audience. Because unfortunately, with magic, there is always a suspicion where people think that someone might be on it. You know, like I never use stooges. I never have plants in my shows. Everyone that is in my show seeing a performance is a spectator and they are witnessing the same magic everyone is witnessing, even when it happens to them. What did you call your show? So the show is called The Present. We opened it on May 7th. It's still running and it closes this Saturday where we're going to do this big blowout performance for more

than 6,000 people at the same time. So it's going to... How do you do that? Are you mailing 6,000 packages? We are, well, there are different tiers. So there are people that are just going to be watching the show. Some people that will have only an envelope. So it's just a partial part of the interaction. And then there are 25 guests that are going to be with me on Zoom

with the full box interacting with me as we've done more than 250 shows at this point. So it's really cool. And it's going to be like a big closing party. It sounds like it was very successful, Helder. Is that correct?

It was extremely successful. It was a great, you know what? We can measure it in many ways. How many people saw it, how many people engaged with that, how many emails we got after the show. We can measure it in many ways, how many people saw it, how many people engaged with that, how many emails we got after the show, you know, like we can measure it in so many ways. It was so special. But the part that I liked the most was that during this crazy time in our lives, I could be able, with what I do, bring some peace, some closure, some happiness to people in their houses. And for me, that's how I measure it. It's like the smiles, it's a little cliche, I know, but it's like, it's literally at

the end of the day, what matters the most is how you see people leaving the Zoom call after the show. You know, like that's what at the end of the day, I measure the success of the show in. And I'm very happy to say that I would put a percentage of 99% of people come out of the show, like with a huge smile. Some people, you know, they have a cathartic moment sometimes where they cry, you know, like we've had, like, yeah, it's crazy. It's insane. But I think the fact that people are more vulnerable at this point emotionally, and all of a sudden they are in front of a computer, but they feel they are connecting with other people. You know, that's where I think the beauty of the show lies on. The magic is one of the vehicles of achieving that.

The storytelling, it's another one. But at the end of the show, the fact that we can create this feeling that we've all been together, that's where, for me, the real magic of the show lies in. It sounds like in this era where so many theaters are shut down, you not only found a way to still connect with people on Zoom, a medium that people are coming to resent because so much of their lives are now on Zoom, but you also found a way to help a theater make money during the pandemic. Yeah, you know, like, I like to think that there was this LA Times article that said, this is how you save theater, you know,

like, and it was like this big headline about the show. But I don't like to feel very presumptuous that we've saved theater or we've done theater. But I think the fact that we kept going, it's a big inspiration, not only for other artists and other people and other theaters that when faced in front of a problem, you need to kind of overcome it. You need to find solutions. You need to keep going, you know? And I think the willingness to do something like that is what is always going to save theater.

Well, Helder, congratulations on the show and on all the success. I'm like Brad Pitt in seven levels of wanting to know what's in the box. So I guess I'll see you Saturday for the finale. See you Saturday. Thank you so much. Helder Guimaraes' magic show is called The Present, and if you're curious to see what all the fuss is about, its grand finale is open to anyone, anywhere this Saturday.

You can find more information at the Geffen Playhouse's website. It is geffenplayhouse.org. After a quick break, whether the rest of the theater world can take anything away from this one innovative magic show, it's Today Explained. Support for Today Explained comes from Aura. Aura believes that sharing pictures is a great way to keep up with family, and Aura says it's never been easier thanks to their digital picture frames. They were named the number one digital photo frame by Wirecutter. Aura frames make it easy to share unlimited photos and videos directly from your phone to the frame. When you give an Aura frame as a gift, you can personalize it, you can preload it with a

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or someone close to you, please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Okay, we heard about one very popular magic show, but to get a sense of what the rest of the American theatrical world is up to, we turn to someone who has experience with many sides of it. Okay, my name is David Cody, and I'm a New York-based theater critic, playwright, and opera librettist. So you're not just a critic, but someone who himself makes theater.

Yes, I'm that foolish. Yeah. What's one of your operas? We'll play some of it while we talk about why the theater is very important. I have one opera called Three Way, which is basically three one-act operas about power, desire, identity. I know how it works. Let's talk about how live theater is working right now, or not working. What's happening to theater in the United States? Well, you know, theater is really, you know, it's in a coma.

The body is still alive, but there's not a lot happening. I mean, some organizations have had to furlough employees. Thousands and thousands of people, actors, writers, directors, designers, stagehands. There's nothing running on Broadway or off Broadway or off-off. It's like their theaters are empty. I just talked to Helder about the present, which brought in a bunch of revenue for the Geffen. But what other sorts of coping mechanisms have worked out for theaters? Well, I mean, with the understanding that none of this stuff is actually a revenue generator or sustainable as a long-term plan, theaters have put on, they put on readings.

Hi, everybody. This is Annette O'Toole. You know, there's a company called Play Per View, which you can do a donation of 15 bucks and see a reading with actors. I'm going to be doing a reading of Michael Lawrence's play Hamlet in Bed that he and I did. Amphar, which is a charity about researching AIDS, put on a Zoom presentation of scenes from Angels in America.

Greetings, prophets. The great work begins. The messenger has arrived. Right, I think I saw something like that on YouTube, too. And my former colleagues at WNYC did a radio version of Shakespeare in the Park, though I guess that was free. I have been studying

how I may compare this prison where I live unto the world. Absolutely, yeah. The Public Theater co-produced that. Thoughts tending to ambition, they do plot unlikely wonders. Those are one-offs, though. They're not

really... It's not easy for theaters to transition into media companies overnight. Unlikely wonders. I mean, The Magic Show, what's fascinating about The Magic Show is that it's essentially an off-off-Broadway show. Meaning, it's like playing to, what, 25 or 30 people at a time? I mean, if you did that in a theater, that's off-off Broadway, which is like a hole-in-the-wall

theater. But he's able to do it like however many times a week, and they charge tickets, and it's been running for X amount of months, and it's super cheap to produce, so they make money. And in that way, it's sort of exceptional because since it's a one-man show, it doesn't really necessitate all the testing and safety precautions that putting on an actual stage production would, huh? Right. And it's a guy in a room at a table with some cards. So what does it actually look like when real theaters try to come back with real productions? Is it like what we're currently seeing with the movies, where theaters

are kind of playing it by ear, but promising, you know, limited seating and more safety precautions? I think right now it's really all or nothing as far as a lot of Broadway shows, because until you can get like 800 to 1800 people in a room eight times a week, you know, to see a show, it's just not going to be profitable to open up a Broadway show again. Do we know if theater can come back from this? I mean, it's one thing for Hollywood studios to sort of take huge losses this year and plan for the future and make revenue off of their existing titles and movies that are streaming in every which place. But theater's just not making money right now, right? How many Broadway companies are going to fold, or even more so,

theaters all across the country that don't even have the allure of Broadway? Well, first of all, there are like 41 Broadway theaters, and they're all owned by these corporations, like the Schuberts or the Nederlanders or the mega landlords of you know, they own the buildings. And of course, they get subsidies from the state and the, you know, in the city. Until we start hearing about organizations like the public theater or second stage theater or, you know, all the sort of the middle tier of theaters in New York, until we hear about them closing, you know, the theater is hibernating, but it's not dying. So it's really off-off, which is most vulnerable. Small theaters that are just sort of hopefully have arrangements with their landlords not to be evicted.

But it's the question, it's like, what are they going to put on? Is the audience going to come back? And the audience is mostly older and white. So what kind of theater are they going to put on? Are they going to put on more diverse stuff? Are they going to attract a younger, more diverse audience? Because that's something that I think everybody wants to happen. Have you seen anything like that? Has there been some silver lining to theaters going dark this year? Well, I mean, in the middle of this whole

pandemic, there was a big sort of manifesto that was published online by a group called We See You White American Theater. So I think what that letter does is it challenges Broadway, which is a white institution. Calling out American theater. It is a white, it's called the Great White Way, not just for jokes, but... For its history of being dominated by white artists. Those people who are at the top, who are the house owners, who are the main producers. What playwrights get produced and how many actresses get hired every year. In our union heads, they're all white. So this document was calling for everybody, including media companies,

in terms of who they hire for critics and reporters, to boards of theaters, to who they produce in the seasons, you know, asking them to be, or demanding that they be more balanced. We demand them to see the truth and also make room for us at the top. But I think that everybody's paying attention. And once theater does reopen, if it's just business as usual, then people are going to freak out because it's things do have to change. Because if there's not a new generation of theater goers,

that's more diverse and younger than yeah theater is definitely dying so this pandemic itself may not kill theater but it shed light on an issue that could eventually kill theater yeah it showed the disease in the body for sure yeah i imagine because you're not only a playwright, but also a critic, that your fellow playwrights, artists come to you sometimes for hope, for some light in all this. What do you tell them? I tell them that theater has survived worse than this. It survived worse plagues, worse wars. It survived Stalin. It survived McCarthy. It survived Cats, the musical. We'll survive this. Well, I'm sorry to deliver the news to you, but we're going to go out on Cats now.

No! Theater is just a memory. I need you. Open up. Enter in. If you find there the meaning of what happiness is, then a new life will begin David Cody is a theater critic and a playwright based in New York City. The cats behind Today Explained include Halima Shah, Amina Alsadi, Muj Zaydi, Will Reed, and Noam Hassenfeld, who makes music too. Big helps from Bird Pinkerton,

Cecilia Lay, and Paul Mounsey this week. Big beats from the mysterious Breakmaster Cylinder. Golda Arthur is our supervising producer. Liz Kelly Nelson is Vox's editorial director of podcasts. And Today Explained is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Let the memory live again. Burned out ends of smoky days. Stale cold smell of morning.