IMPRESARIO: What’s What With … The Man Who Made a Jumbo Jet Disappear
It’s true that Mark Kalin and Jinger Leigh don’t have the profile of magicians like Copperfield, David Blaine, or Penn & Teller, but within that inner circle of magic, they are actually hugely respected for their professionalism, talent, and dedication to the preservation of the art. Through August 17th, you can catch their Real Magic show at Trump Marina. I checked in with Kalin to discuss severing his wife’s finger, jealousy, and the potential death of magic.
Is your show at Trump a big, glitzy Vegas casino-style magic show?
We were in the casino market for many years. At the end of 2002, we had a gigantic show in Reno on one of the world’s largest stages. We made an American Airlines jumbo jet disappear. But our shows grew so big that we lost the connection with the audience. So we opened our own theater, 200 seats. And we went from this giant show with a jumbo jet and a cast of dancers, tigers, and leopards, and we got rid of all of those trappings and went for something that is a real theatrical experience.
So just how does one make a jumbo jet disappear?
[Laughs, as if he hasn’t heard this 38 million times] I guess I am supposed to come up with a witty answer to that … hmm …
I think you are supposed to say “Very carefully.”
Right. Very carefully … Not so easily … We were at this really cool theater in Reno, at the Flamingo Hilton, but it was about to be sold. Well, there was another Hilton across the way, and it used to have one of those giant production shows with a cast of 200 people. So it was a one-acre stage with no show. What they did have was the jet left over from that show. 80 foot wingspan, built by McDonnell Douglas. And I thought, “How am I going to get the Hilton to move us to that theater?” And I decided that if I could make that jet disappear, they’d move us. I can still see all the marketing people perk up when I said, “We’ll be performing the largest live production number in the history of magic.”
Your Trump show is called “Real Magic.” Are you suggesting that there’s actually something supernatural going on?
No. What we have here is a magic show. The “real magic” touches on the magic of people like David Blaine, where magic hearkens back to how it was presented 100 years ago, where there’s a certain question between what is real and what isn’t. One of the illusions I do, I borrow three finger rings from the audience and the rings link together. It’s very intimate. It’s a step away from the style of magic that people see in casinos, where there’s a lot of razzmatazz.
Why do magicians seem to hate each other so much?
[Laughs for a while] Professional jealously, competition, plus it’s a very, very small world. There’s a saying in magic that 5 percent of the magicians do the thinking for the other 95 percent. There is a core group of people that really respect each other and are always forward-thinking. And then there’s a whole bunch of magicians out there that take whatever the 5 percent do, whether it’s the costuming or the script, and that’s where a lot of the inner strife comes in. There’s a lot of infighting.
Is it difficult having your assistant (Jinger) also be your wife?
No, Jinger and I have always been partners. She’s a much better performer than I will ever be. We don’t operate under the idea of “I’m the magician. Get in the box.” … Of course, she wasn’t very happy when I sliced the tip of her finger off on stage. We were doing the sawing-in-half trick. She finished it, took a bow, holding her gloved hand, and walked offstage. I never knew anything was wrong until someone whispered in my ear, “We’re taking Jinger to the hospital.” (You can see Kalin & Jinger perform that trick here.)
You mentioned David Blaine, whose TV specials were such big hits. What are your thoughts on those shows that explain how famous tricks are done?
Magic has suffered with exposure forever. In the ’40s, every Camel cigarette pack exposed a different magic trick. Then with television, in the ’90s, there was the masked magician — we even tried to get an injunction — but magic survived.
So you don’t think that the exposures hurt the art or the industry?
Well, you can go to the library and get a book, but you have to get to the library. You can watch a TV show, but they can only get so much in there. But it remains to be seen is what the internet will do. Now it’s instantaneous. I think it’s a valid question. Will magic weather the next five, 10, 20 years, with all that instant information out there … But you can go to Disneyland, and you can watch all those TV shows that show you all the mechanics, all the tunnels that go behind the rides, and yet when you walk into the park, it’s Disneyland. It’s magic.
