It’s fitting that one must go down under to experience the illusions of Mark Kalin and Jinger Leigh. The magic this husband and wife team presents in its new home beneath the Pioneer Center is unlike the usual mainstream illusions, Kalin said.

“We’re re-creating and celebrating magic as an art,” he said. “We can present magic in a way that people don’t always get to see.”

That’s because Kalin and Jinger are no longer under the constraints of the casino industry. As owners of the Magic Underground, the couple are limited only by imagination and finance.

A high-budget magic show full of lights and pyrotechnics and large props is not what Kalin and Jinger want. They’ve gone that route, performing for several years in “Carnival of Wonders” at the Flamingo Hilton and “Illusionarium” at the Reno Hilton.

What they are creating, Kalin said, is a theater-like atmosphere from the late 1800s. Walk down the concrete steps and you’ll be in the lobby, a mini-museum that is filled with magical antiques, original stone lithograph playbills and other magic-related items. The resident house magician, Jacques Simard, entertains the crowd with close-up magic. And, if all goes right, the new Parlor of Mystery — designed exclusively for close-up magicians — will open by May 20.

“We are borrowing from 100 years ago where theaters of magic and illusion were, if not commonplace, at least around,” he said. “Great magicians of the day would create these theaters of wonder, these environments where only magicians perform. They could set the mood and create the environment most conducive to magic.

“People enjoyed going out and having a sophisticated evening of entertainment and appreciate the best of magic. I believe people still will.”

Like vaudeville, those clubs vanished to the increasing popularity of movies, he said. It was television that brought magic back into the public eye. As its popularity increased, so did performers’ budgets. By the 1990s, razzle-dazzle magic shows proliferated.

But razzle-dazzle only goes so far. To explain, Kalin used the analogy of a movie loaded with special effects but no plot compared to a movie with a plot that uses effects to enhance the story.

“Magic, when properly performed, creates a sense of wonder and you really forget about the puzzle aspect,” Kalin said. “It’s about letting the magic help tell the story rather than just having one more (big illusion) foisted on the crowd.”

To facilitate this, the couple has employed the services of Jim Steinmeyer as the show’s writer and illusion designer. Steinmeyer, who wrote the non-fiction book “Hiding the Elephant,” has worked with Doug Henning, David Copperfield and Lance Burton.

The theater experience is enhanced by show director Joanie Spina, who worked for 11 years as co-director and choreographer for Copperfield.

The show features several illusions from the couple’s old repertoire, including sawing Jinger in half, levitating Jinger, Kalin’s billiard ball manipulation trick — the very first he learned — and the Table of Terror. Jinger also seemingly penetrates Kalin’s body at one point.

But it’s much different performing these tricks when the stage is the floor and the audience is mere feet away from the prop. There’s less margin for error. Take, for instance, where Jinger is cut in half by solid steel plates.

“In a good-hearted way, we’re challenging the audience to study it from every angle,” he said.

Winners of numerous magic industry awards, one would expect Kalin and Jinger’s show to be strong, and it is. But what really excites Kalin is the addition of rotating guest performers and parlor magicians.

“In some ways, close-up is the purest form of magic,” said Kalin, who near the show’s end performs a mind-blowing close-up illusion that involves items from three audience members. “It’s stripping away all of the surroundings. It’s right there under your nose. It doesn’t rely on distance, lighting, staging or fog. It’s really an intimate encounter between the performer and the audience.”

It’s an encounter that is infrequent for both.

“No one is more underground in magic than the close-up magician. In fact, many of them study for years and almost never perform except for very private groups. Many are tortured artists that are all about the perfection of their art and, of course, they do unbelievably amazing things but there’s really nowhere for them to demonstrate their hard work, art and skill. That, to me, is an untapped source. To be able to bring them here and give audiences a chance to see them perform is extremely exciting.”

Kalin has a childhood friend, Armando Lucero, who has been practicing the same close-up tricks since 1977. Only in the past two years has Lucero started to perform.

“He baffled every magician he performed for, including me,” Kalin said. “His life is dedicated to sitting in a room and perfecting these skills. I think stuff like this needs to be seen.”

And so it shall. To Kalin, magic is a metaphor for life. He uses his final close-up illusion (which we won’t reveal) as an example.

“To me, it’s the single most impossible thing in the show. Because there’s no explanation for it. So I tell the audience I’m going to leave it up to them as to what they saw. Are they seeing a miracle? Are they seeing witchcraft? Or is it an entertaining optical illusion? These are all classic questions in magic and in life. Is what we think of as real really real? You decide.

Featured in the
Reno Gazette Journal
Neil Baron (more stories by author)
Calendar correspondent
5/13/2004 04:03 pm

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