Hypnotized

Last Friday, I was the lucky recipient of a rare summer work opportunity at the theatre. As great as that sounds, it was even better when I discovered that I was working the famed hypnotist show. Seriously, like every single person who has ever worked this in the past decade still raves about how great it is.

I'm just going to throw this out there, but I would make an excellent hypnotism candidate. If I didn't have to do something during the show, I would have been all up on that stage stealing a valuable experience from some snooty high school kid. Some of my qualifications; constant sleep deprivation, active imagination, ability to fall asleep in an upright sitting position, sleep talking, little to no recollection of past events, and the willingness to look like a fool in front of large amounts of people.

He wasn't some second rate amateur grad student either, they fly the guy in from Florida every year. He really does tours, professionally, around the nation to hypnotize people. I know his name was Tom, but I can't remember his last name. Anyway, I was struggling not to get pulled in while he put all the participants to sleep. I was sitting next to a speaker with weird psychotic music playing, within earshot of everything that was happening. I kept having to stand up and walk away to stay awake. Totally worth staying awake, though.

Highlights

There was a young man Tom convinced to be a defender of fruit. The boy was told that fruit has feelings, too, and it was his job to protect it. Later, Tom apologized for not having eaten before the show and pulled an apple out of his pocket. "STOP," the boy yelled. "Don't eat that apple. It has feeling." Tom argued with him about how a person can know that an apple feels pain, and finally handed over the apple. So Tom pulled a banana out of his pocket (that pocket had to go all down the length of his pants, because he pulled so much stuff out of there.) The boy snatched it from him, and said, "All fruit has feelings."

The boy harbored the fruit for near a half hour. During the next round of hypnotizing, Tom made the boy believe he hadn't eaten for two days and was starving to death. It took a few minutes of staring down the apple, the boy said, "I'm sorry," and took a big bite. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" Tom yelled. "That apple had feelings." The boy cursed, fell to his knees, and started sobbing about what he had done. Tom coaching him through some apple CPR, he revived the poor apple, and started eating the banana. After resuscitating the banana, he became a certified Fruit Hero, and continued to harbor the apple for the rest of the show.

At one point, Tom had everyone onstage believe that the audience members were all in their underwear. There was laughing onstage, some awkward looks at the floor, and a few red cheeks. One girl got up, and tried to walk off stage to join them. ... ??? ... Then Tom turned the joke, and made the participants believe that they were the ones in their underwear. One girl ran off stage, two or three tried to hide behind Tom's assistants, the girl who tried to join the naked audience and the boy next to her proudly posed onstage. Everyone's favorite, though, was the boy who screamed and tried so desperately to get away that he knocked over his chair and ended up hiding underneath it.

There was a boy who was made to believe he was a spy with a trick gun (a water gun) that could only shoot his target when the gun was pointed at himself. There was a boy who gave a different name every time he was asked. There was a lot of panic when a "badger" escaped on the stage, resulting on one of our stagehands practically being tackled by a girl running to get away.

Tom had a boy disbelieve Tom was a magician, but any time Tom said, "Freeze," the boy would would go back in the trance. Tom used this to make the boy believe a girl in the front row was an escape artist, and she disappeared from right in front of him and reappeared behind him. It was great.

I had a good time at work, and hope that someday I get to participate in one of these performances.