One of the things that I see a lot in magic shows is a performer who doesn’t look like they’re having a good time. I get that there are some characters where this makes sense; however, I frequently see it in comedy magic. You absolutely should look like you’re having fun if you’re a standard comedy magician.
The other night I saw The Return of Jackie and Judy, which is a Ramones cover band that’s made up of Fred Armisen and most of the band Sleater-Kinney. One of the things about this show was everyone onstage looked like they were having a blast!
When you’re onstage, in most cases, you should look like you’re having fun! It shouldn’t look like a chore; even doing openly difficult things can look fun, or at least like you enjoy what you’re doing.
A few years ago I wrote a blog post about The Secret to Likability, which is worth a read.
-Louie