- A entrevista a Helder Guimarães pode ser lida em http://www.hollywoodsoapbox.com/?p=10415 e, seguidamente se transcreve, com a devida vénia, o respectivo conteúdo.
From Portugal to L.A. — Helder Guimarãres is
ready for some magic
The promos for the Geffen Playhouse’s hit magic show, Nothing to Hide, have stars Derek
DelGaudio and Helder Guimarãres looking out from the posters like two convicts
ready for a mugshot. They’re bruised and bloody, with DelGaudio holding a
cigarette to his mouth and Guimarãres about to enjoy what looks like a double
scotch. It’s a perfectly odd poster, and what may catch the spectator off guard
are the stares of each performer. It’s almost as if they’re looking at the
world, directly into the eyes of anyone glancing their way. There’s a mystery
there, something beckoning from behind the red-framed glasses of Guimarãres and
the sucker-punched eye of DelGaudio.
There’s a feeling of enticement, of something being hidden. In other
words, they’re welcoming the audience to a different type of magic show, one
that both honors the tradition of the art form and turns it on its head.
Consider yourself invited.
The evolution of Nothing
to Hide was “kind of surprising and organic at the same time,”
Guimarãres said recently during a phone interview. “I was moving from Portugal
to L.A., and I ended up arriving in the beginning of 2012.”
The former World Champion of Magic had moved to Los Angles at a most
auspicious time for magic. The famed Magic Castle, the Mecca of magic in the
world, was preparing for a grand reopening after a devastating fire. DelGaudio
was booked to perform with another magician, but soon enough Guimarãres
was asked to fill in after circumstances changed.
“The initial plan and the initial idea was we were going to do like our
separate repertoires,” he said. “Derek was going to do his, and I was going to
do mine. And then because we had just … three days to come up with something,
we decided wouldn’t it be cool if we could do at least one thing together. So
at least it feels different and it feels special.”
That initial conversation has blossomed into a Cinderella success story.
With only a couple days before the premiere, the two magicians kept adding
material to their routines. “And then we realized, we were like, oh, we should
do the whole show together,” Guimarãres said. “When the day comes, we do the
show together, and it was immediately a huge success at the Castle, and people
talking with other people, saying you have to see this. And lines start forming.”
Their two-night stint expanded into a full weekend of shows, then more
shows and more shows. Eventually, the magicians attracted the interest of the
Geffen Playhouse and Neil Patrick Harris (who serves as director of the
transferred show), and they’ve been playing an extended run since November.
Tickets are currently on sale through March 3. Plans for a future life in
another American city are possible.
Guimarãres is not new to success in the magic world. In 2006, he won the
World Championship of Magic in cards. “After that I started traveling around
the world and getting invitations to perform almost everywhere you could
possibly imagine,” he said. “I start knowing the world and meeting people and
feeling empathy with some places and not others. You know, just like growing up
and living.”
He specifically came to Los Angeles to see the Magic Castle, a place he
heard about when growing up around the magic world. He met some friends on
these early trips to Los Angeles, including DelGaudio. “And eventually because
of different circumstances, I felt that I belonged here,” he said. “And that’s
just a feeling you have like a gut feeling, more than any other thing. It’s
less rational and more emotional than any other thing. … I’ve always loved
being here. I think my work has always been very well received here. So I said,
why not? Why not just try and move to L.A. and see what happens.”
For most of his professional life, Guimarãres has performed solo,
although he collaborated with magicians during the development phase of several
acts.
Now, more than a year after the original shows of Nothing to Hide, Guimarãres
can’t seeing doing the show without DelGaudio. “It’s one of those things that
we couldn’t do it alone,” he said. “There are certain types of approaches that
if you try to do it alone, it just doesn’t work. It’s not the same. That is one
of the beauties of this show. … We created the show together. It makes no sense
that other two magicians would do this show. It can only actually be done by
both of us.”
Guimarãres said it’s been interesting to see some audience members at
the Geffen transform their perceptions. They might enter the theater expecting
something strictly theatrical, and they leave with a deeper appreciation of the
magical. “They enter to see one thing; they see another one, and they love it,”
he said. “So that’s just a very beautiful experience. And sometimes (they) even
come out of the show saying, ‘I didn’t know magic was like this. You know, I
thought magic was a different thing.’ So that’s a really good experience to
listen to someone saying those words. As a magician, it’s just amazing.”
The magician, whose roots go back to Portugal, said he is fortunate to
have found success in this artistic field. “I’m very particular about my
choices of what I want to do and what I focus energy on,” he said. “I think I
have a very … strong belief system about what I should do with my life and what
I want to do with my life.”
One choice he made more than a year ago is still paying off, and
audiences are still transforming, likely confounded and amazed by carefully
calculated sleight-of-hand acts. Like the poster for Nothing to Hide, with the performers
bruised and bloody, there’s that inviting, mysterious stare. It’s a promise of
something different.
By John Soltes
- A entrevista a Derek DelGaudio pode ser lida em http://www.hollywoodsoapbox.com/?p=10339 e, seguidamente se transcreve, com a devida vénia, o respectivo conteúdo.
Derek DelGaudio, star of new Geffen show, has
‘Nothing to Hide’ … or does he?
It all started at The Magic Castle, the mysterious private club in
Hollywood that hosts the best magicians in the world. After a damaging fire
threatened to close the establishment for good, the members decided to hold a
grand reopening. That’s when Derek DelGaudio, co-founder of the performance art
duo A.Bandit, entered the picture.
“I was asked to work one of the showrooms as sort of like a reopening of
the castle, with another magician, another friend of mine who is a great
performer,” DelGaudio said recently during a phone interview. “I was reluctant,
but it was a friend of mine who asked me to do it and then a friend of mine who
was going to be the performer. So I thought, this will be a nice way to go back
to the Castle.”
DelGaudio committed himself to the project and secured a spot in one of
the intimate theaters of the legendary Magic Castle. And then problems began to
occur. A few days after accepting, his friend dropped out of the show after
receiving a part on a TV show.
“So I was like, uh…,” DelGaudio said. “There was really no one else I
wanted to work with at the time. And it was just for a two-night show, and
coincidentally my friend from Portugal, who I had known for a few years …
decided to move to L.A. and be around The Magic Castle.”
That friend is Helder Guimarães, and the rest is magic history.
“So he agreed to step in, and so we threw a show together in like a
week,” he said. “And it was the first time I did a show like this together or
any show together, and the reaction was crazy. People really enjoyed it.”
The response to the duo act was tremendous, so much so that scoring a
coveted seat at The Magic Castle for the original run was nearly impossible.
That’s when plans were set in motion to take the show to the Geffen Playhouse’s
intimate Audrey Skirball Kenis Theater, where Nothing to Hide has been playing to sold-out crowds for a couple
of months. Ticket sales have been so brisk that the Geffen has extended the
play through Feb. 24.
Details on the show are best kept hidden, but the Geffen promises
“engaging vignettes brought to life solely from the words and hands of two
masterful magicians.”
“I’ve always thought magic and mystery and wonder is an amazing thing,
and the only thing that stands in the way of people appreciating it are the
people that are presenting it,” DelGaudio said. “So I’m not surprised that when
you work hard, put a lot of love and effort into presenting a good project, put
a good show together, I’m not surprised that people respond to it positively.
But I’m surprised at how positive it has been.”
Throughout the show’s evolution, the performance piece has expanded and
added a famous director: Neil Patrick Harris, star of How I Met Your Mother and president
of the Academy of Magical Arts. “Neil has always been a believer in magic in
the best sense,” DelGaudio said of his director. “He’s able to see the world
through a child’s eyes and present that. … He’s been shepherding this onto
this larger platform, and he’s just super supportive. He gets me, he gets us,
he gets our show. And he also is super seasoned, where I tend to think more
abstractedly or conceptually about the ideas and what I want to say and do, and
maybe not thinking about the practicality of the situation, Neil is always the
first to kind of let me know the reality of the situation.”
The transition of the sleight-of-hand show from The Magic Castle to the
Geffen took some time and hard work. “We had a real punk rock vibe at the
Castle and it was an educated crowd, and even the people who weren’t educated,
they were in an environment where they were informed by the people around
them,” he said. “I mean when we did this at the Castle, we had people waiting
in line for four hours or more to see us. It was like when Space Mountain opened
at Disneyland. So we didn’t really need to do much other than go out and do a
great job. But at the Geffen, people see some of the best performers, best
directors, best writers in the world work on that stage. So we were playing
against Pulitzer Prize-winning authors and directors … It’s a different level,
and we’re graded on a different curve. But I’m very proud that our show can
stand on a stage that has those types of credits and those types of talents
working on it. It’s pretty amazing.”
DelGaudio admitted that his love for the craft came much later in life,
although he appreciated the “romance” of magic as a child. Today, he’s grown
into a diverse performance artist, one that tries to redefine the definition of
magic in 2013. “I’m always trying to not let what the word magician means
necessarily apply to me,” he said. “I’m trying to create it for myself.”
Now, several months after he was first pitched the idea of working again
at The Magic Castle, DelGaudio finds himself attached to Guimarães as a performer.
He can’t think of doing the show without his colleague by his side. “There’s no
one else I could replace Helder with that I would trust on all of those levels
and vice versa,” he said.
In the future, Nothing to
Hide might jump across the country and set up its magic shop in New York
City. “But after that, who is to say,” DelGaudio said. “We have different goals
in a long-term sense. So it’ll also come from working apart. I think we’re
taking it (on a) project-by-project basis. I don’t think we’re forming a duo,
not like Penn & Teller or anything like that. But if another idea for a
show came along, we would jump on the opportunity to work together, because we
do work well together.”
For both magic enthusiasts and those on the fence about the craft,
DelGaudio recommends giving Nothing
to Hide a chance. “I believe that mystery really is a universal
experience,” he said. “It’s something, if presented properly, is an inherent
property that we are all drawn to and think is beautiful.”
By John
Soltes
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