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Magical mystery doer >>The Amazing Todsky brings enchantment to the lives of gradeschoolers, grannies and goats by RUPERT BOTTENBERG
And he should know. Todsky (or Todd Shapiro, according to his driver's license) works a circuit that gets about as much respect as Rodney Dangerfield. He's been doing so since he placed a classified ad at the age of 14, toting around his gear ("a Star Trek model box full of little dinky tricks") for the amusement of... well, mostly drunks, brats and invalids. "At the time I was charging 10 bucks a show," he says. "That was about 20 years ago. Now I charge 11 dollars because of inflation." Todsky took his cue from the almost-but-not-quite-legendary Magic Tom. "He was a Montreal magician who worked the kids' circuit, Piazza Tomasso and places like that. He even had a TV show." Todsky may not yet have hit the star-studded big time of Sunday morning cable access, but he's managing. To date he's done over 1,000 shows, and most have gone pretty smoothly. "Birthday parties are my bread and butter. Bar mitzvahs, that's a bit different. The kids are about 13, and they're really smart. They all have uncles or cousins who are magicians so they know all the tricks. Magic is a very Jewish thing... it's kaballah, Jewish mysticism. You have to be really good to pull it off." If the pimply teens are a rough crowd, they're not half as bad as the senior citizens at the homes where Todsky sometimes performs. "Some of them are functioning," he says, "but if you go to a home where they're really old and frail, some of them will be wheeled in, and they don't really want to be there. It's just their activity time. I remember an old man in a wheelchair, I came up to him with a trick and he goes 'Fuck you!' Then this old lady said, 'If he comes at me again I'm going to kill him!' Because when they get that old, they just don't care anymore. They're like kids that way." Think that's bad? It can get far worse, to hear Todsky tell it. "I did a show at a rock bar way out east. I forget how I got that show, but there was a lot of bikers there. I think the owner thought I was going to do one of those nude acts where I pull stuff out of my ass. They were all drinking beer and yelling 'Get out of here!' I thought they were going to start throwing bottles at me. I thought they were going to lynch me." There's a history to this kind of treatment, you know. Maybe it has something to do with leftover superstitions about black magic, evil sorcerers out to do ill. "I've done some shows, at synagogues and Jewish schools, where the rabbi will tell me that I have to say beforehand that it's not real magic. Because in the tradition, anyone who claims to be a magician is stoned. And not with a joint. With actual rocks." No respect, no respect. But you know something, it all plays nicely into the Amazing Todsky's schtick. For all his praise of Magic Tom, his strongest influence comes from the realms of stand-up comedy, not magic. It's Steven Wright, the guy who plays blank cassettes full volume to piss off the mimes upstairs, who laid the foundation for Todsky's deadpan self-deprecation, delivered at a snail's pace. Such a schtick is liable to go over the heads of some people--i.e. 300-pound bikers and mean-spirited senile old farts. Sometimes the trick works, though. Todsky has performed in the old city of Jerusalem, in Egypt, at Maxim's of Paris in London. One of his best crowds, though, was a family in Venezuela. Of course, it was a family of goats. "I was on this dirt street, doing rope tricks for some kids. Then these goats passed by. They sort of stopped for a while and looked at what was going on. It was weird, and sort of mystical in a way." Now and then, Todsky gets to do his act for a young, hip crowd. The kind of people who "get it," if you know what I mean. He's playing the Fringe Fest lately, amusing jaded Gen-Xers with old chestnuts like the Sword Through The Neck number. Other gems from his repertoire include Toxic Rubber Chickens From Nowhere, Weird Things That Float And Fly Through The Air, and something called Endless Water, which sounds rather appropriate for the seniors rest homes. But how do you impress a crowd raised on Fox TV specials revealing the well-guarded secrets of the craft? "It bugs me, it really does," Todsky sighs anew. "You know who he is, this Mathemagician? He's that precocious kid who always stood up at shows and went, "I know how it's done! I know how it's done!" But we know who he is. We're working on a special surprise for him." In the end, maybe the safest path for the Amazing Todsky to tread is the one well-worn by Magic Tom and his ilk. "I love performing for kids," he says. "They're very funny, they're unpredictable. I prefer kids who are obnoxious and rowdy and swear at me. I do a lot of funny stuff with the kids... I fall down, my hat falls off, I do a lot of slapstick. With adults I have to be more subtle, I have to lead them in a slow way to that weird place. A place that's a little bit higher, where anything is possible. It gives them a sense of wonder. With kids I can go right there. Bang!" The Amazing Todsky amazes people at the Chutzpah! Jewish Arts & Performance Festival, tonight, Thursday, June 11 at 8pm and Sunday, June 14 at 3pm. Both events are at the Fringe Stage at the gates of McGill University, on Sherbrooke
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In these pre-millennial days of virtual reality, computer imaging and holograms, it's the sad truth that the old art of stage magic no longer gets the respect it deserves. The glory days of Houdini and the like have seemingly vanished in a cloud of smelly, colourful stage smoke. Gone are the grand evenings of command performances for the aristocracy, the gilded columns and velvet curtains. Looking back in pained nostalgia, the Amazing Todsky wistfully sighs, "It had that sense of import, somehow..."