Matt Has your [act] changed since you were doing it in your teens?
Alex Yes, a lot. Stylistically, persona, structurally, for sure. One of the nice things about working on an act is it can get refined and you can put attention into it. When you learn about the world, you see a movie, or a show, it all gets funneled in somehow. It’s nice to have a focus and something to think about and play with.
Matt I love doing the show with you every night. I definitely felt from day one as I watched us slowly set up our little stuff, that we’re not just coming in with the deck of cards, but we are setting up a lot of meticulous little stuff. I always feel this sense that we’re going to walk out and have to be pretty naked up there. There’s not much to guard us. But I’m very comfortable with it.
Alex Also, because they don’t know the form, there is a wonderful sense of a surety. There is all that extra stuff and setup, but I carry that with me, in my mind and also literally. So many times when I make that first bird appear there’s this pop in response from the audience and the thought goes through my head: “They have no idea. If they like that, they are really going to enjoy what’s about to happen.”
Matt Every night, if I run into Prakash [Puru] and we’re waiting to go to the next table, and you’re about to throw that paper airplane, and you throw it and it turns into a dove and the crowd almost every time, it’s rare it doesn’t happen, I mean it’s almost 99% they just go ape shit. They freak out and Prakash will almost every time turn to me and say, “Why do we even bother?” That’s the best magic in the whole show.
Alex Thank you. I really love that and I love that moment. And it’s been interesting structurally, [because] I used to do that in the middle. I would do the productions of the birds. I would do the vanish. I would do the airplane. Then I would do a zombie ball after that and then at the end of that, I might make a bird appear out of the zombie ball foulard or something.
Matt Wow. I had no idea. And so what happened?
