Photo: michaelcarbonaro.com
Michael Carbonaro
Michael Carbonaro
“I think all of art is a kind of magic,” comedic illusionist Michael Carbonaro muses regarding his humorous illusionism.
“A painter uses highlights, shadows and colors to create the illusion of a landscape or a splash of sloppy color to elicit an emotion, " he continues, concluding "make-up artists, film makers, actors, comics we're all a kind of magician."
Carbonaro brings the same sort of mind-blowing, gut-busting sleight of hand that has garnered him appearances on late night talk shows and sitcoms as well as his own cable series, “The Carbonaro Effect,” to The Pabst Theater (144 E. Wells St.) for an 8 p.m. show on Friday April 1. Milwaukee has the good fortune to witness Carbonaro plying his trade on April Fool’s Day, when his discombobulating visual spectacles will doubtless fool many in attendance.
“’Illusionist’ is kind of a job description, whereas the magician and the trickster are far more alluring archetypes,” Carbonaro says, distinguishing between what he might put on his tax forms as his occupation and the role with which he most identifies. But “magician” doesn't quite cut it for him either.
“I think the word magician can still feel limiting to some degree in our modern world. I love to associate with the trickster,” he explains. “The trickster is the disrupter, the clever sneaky shapeshifter who makes order through chaos and has the power, through deceptive practices and illusory techniques to expand real and actual boundaries. How fun is that?!” If that description of the sort of character with whom Carbonaro identifies seems nefarious, he doesn’t mean any harm by it.
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The Trickster
“While the trickster is sometimes associated as evil—and I do like to get a good scare on ... consider this a warning: there are clowns and gnomes in the new tour show! I tend to land more ‘Bugs Bunny.’ I like people, and I like good fun. I enjoy making people stop and think, wrestle with a thought, laugh, say ‘Wow, you got me!’ and rethink how things around them may or may not really be,” Carbonaro offers. His role in urging people to question the reality about them makes the title of his current tour, “Michael Carbonaro: Lies on Stage,” as he sees it, truthful.
He practically waxes metaphysical when speaking of the nature of being a professional trickster. “I think as humans we believe what we see and what we think we are experiencing,” Carbonaro says. Expanding upon his thesis, he continues, “We are beautiful fools, all of us, and anyone who disagrees, to me, just proves the point. I believe that being faced with things that seem impossible is mind expanding, though it ultimately may be a trick; it makes you think, ‘Hey, you know, maybe the universe doesn't always have to work the way that I think that does.’ This is a freeing and empowering mantra. Because it’s true. Calling myself a trickster, a magician, ‘one who does tricks’ is being open about the lies, and to me, that's honest.”
Honesty is also a hallmark of much of the best comedy, too. And though there's plenty of fodder for laughter in the sheer wonder Carbonaro generates with his legerdemain, he’s a hoot beyond that as well. “Humor comes naturally to me, and I feel extremely lucky for it,” he affirms. “It’s an incredible force that defines who I am and what I love to do. I love to laugh, and I love to make people laugh. I love surprising people and I love surprising myself. With magic, humor is a perfect compliment. It keeps us in the room and in the honest here and now, a perfect place to be thrown off balance by an illusion or a scare!”
Carbonaro promises to conjure thrills of manifold sorts in a show fit for audiences of all ages. And a “Lie” attendee or two may rid themselves of a nuisance besides. As the trickster propounds: “The world needs live entertainment, and the world needs magic. I know I do. This is a show that will make you laugh, smile and be amazed, and it’s great for the whole family. Plus, I make two people from the audience vanish on stage every night—to bring down someone who you may want to … see off.”
See Carbonaro give a small sample of his illusion, with comparisons to last month’s Olympics games in mind, to Hoda Kotb and Jenna Bush Hager:
