Magic Moments
Harry Groener never did any magic until "Sleight of
Hand"
by Martin Burden
A few more stage roles, and Harry Groener should have
a great nightclub act. He keeps adding more
ingredients.
"Let's see," he said, "I had to learn to twirl a
lariat when I was in 'Oklahoma!' and I learned how to
play the saxophone for a show called 'Ghetto'. Now
I've learned some magic tricks for this show. Yes, I
guess I could get an act together."
Groener is co-starring with Jefferey DeMunn in
"Sleight of Hand", which is now in previews at the
Cort Theatre for a scheduled opening April 26th.
Groener, who is also a good song-and-dance man
("Harrigan 'N Hart", "Cats", "Sunday In The Park With
George") plays a magician living in the a big
loft-like apartment filled with trick paraphernalia.
A mysterious gun-toting stranger (DeMunn) barges in
and demands, among other things, that Groener show him
how the stuff works.
That gives Groener a chance to produce a rabbit from a
hat, a dove from a handkerchief. He does a puzzling
card trick and manipulates multiplying balls with
great dexterity.
But until he got the role, he had never done any
magic. How long did he rehearse it?
"Not long enough, apparently," Groener said. "It's
going well now, but during the early previews
everything fell apart-- I knocked over a hat, the
pigeon got away, I dropped a ball. But it got much
better.
"It scared me, but {magic consultant} Charles Reynolds
says every beginning magician goes through that-- the
feeling that the audience knnows what you're doing and
how you're doing it. But it's going well now."
After learning the mechanics of the tricks, Groener
had to learn to fit the movements into specific
dialogue and that was even tougher.
The rope-twirling lessons for "Oklahoma!" included a
big lariat he could skip through, and a big
50-footer:
"On the road I'd take the lariats back to my hotel
room to practice, and the when the maid found them in
the closet I'd have to explain it was just for a show.
Then she'd look at me and my wife sort of funny."
By the way, Harry, how do you do that card trick?
He sighed. "I'd love to tell you. But I can't. All
of us in the show have promised we won't tell."