Another experience that soured Penn on juggling happened during his street performing days. "After I was working juggling in San Francisco for a while, a juggler who will remain nameless took a 'good 4-5 minutes of material from me and did it on the Tonight Show, and in Sugar Babies... People began asking me if I had gotten the material from him, because he was more famous than I was at the time. That really hurt me."

 

So Penn decided to blaze his performance trail with magic rather than juggling. He also points to certain aspects of magic that make it a more interesting and lucrative art to explore.  Penn said, "Magic is a despicable art form, and magicians are more despicable people than jugglers. All you're really doing with magic is lying. In that sense you're taking a basic societal taboo into the artistic realm. That's a very fascinating thing to do, very hip, very happening. Also. magic has irony built into it, and irony is one of the strongest things you can do in theatre. Even done badly as sarcasm, irony always works. In magic you have something that looks one way, and is actually being done another  way. That's tension, that's theatre, that's Beckett."

 

So they started on a magical mystery tour, one which started on the streets of Philadelphia where much of their style and substance was forged. Street performing was still very much illegal, which Teller feels made it more special for both the performer and the audience. He said, .'Street performing is good when it's illegal. When it's legal it's much too tame. The charm of street performing is that you don't expect to find it there. You come out of a restaurant after a lovely dinner and you're walking along a cold city street in the middle of winter and suddenly, out of nowhere something that you've never seen happens, there on the sidewalk. It's kind of a miracle.

 

"If you look at street performing now, in San Francisco they run on a schedule, it's run by hippies, and it's tame. It shows in the performance too, because there's nothing wild about it. There's none of that exotic mystery of where the hell did this person come from."

 

From the streets of Philadelphia the two men eventually made their way to San Francisco, where a producer booked them into the Phoenix Theatre, a 153-seat venue. It was another important step in their development, allowing them the chance to "log in-flight time," in a theatre setting, according to Teller.

 

They performed 965 shows at the Phoenix Theatre in three years and learned a tremendous amount about the art of performance. Teller said, "I know that's where I learned how to move in relation to Penn. When we move on stage, the stage always seems to balance itself. We've been on stage long enough together that I know how to balance it... I take care of the video, he takes care of the audio."

 

The most noticeable part of Penn & Teller's performance has not changed at all since the beginning. Penn as the talker and Teller remaining mute made sense to them from the very beginning, and was based on their prior experiences. Teller said, "It seemed right because I had always worked silent and Penn had always talked. So when we got together, it was natural. But only in the last 10 years have we really learned how to make that an intricate interaction. Now it is very complex and very nice..."

 

Another basic point of performance they have developed is deciding how not to describe their show. They don't classify themselves as any particular brand of artist, and it has paid off well. After all, how do you describe routines where ducks get smashed by anvils and an electrified gorilla does card tricks? It's not the same kind of magic as guys in tuxedos pulling birds from their sleeves.

 

Teller explained that in their first major success, a 22-week sold out run off­Broadway at the Westside Arts Theatre, they didn't advertise a description of the show at all. He said, "So when critics came we did not say this is a magic show or a juggling show. We said it's a show called Penn & Teller, come and decide what it is for yourself. And that's what I like most about it, that there aren't any rules. We don't describe it as anything so we can do anything we jolly well please."

 

And they do anything they please.  The basis of the show has always been magic, but juggling, fire eating and other variety arts sneak from time to time. They haven't juggled since 1986, though, when Penn & Teller ended their run off­Broadway.

That has been a disappointment to many jugglers, as well as Penn's father. Penn said, "My father believes that I no longer do anything in the show. He used to think 'you juggle, Teller does the needles, and it's really good. Now they don't think you can do anything, you just talk.' Taking juggling out of the show made my father crazy, but he pulled his hair out when we took out the fire eating. Now he sees his son on stage for 2-1/2 hours not doing a damn thing."

 

But Penn promises that juggling is not gone forever. "I still have in my mind that in the future there will be, in the Penn & Teller show, another juggling bit," he said. "There's one bit I wrote with Teller several years ago which we've never done. It was a television bit written for me, Teller, and Mike Moschen."

 

With comedy and creativity as the foundation, and magic as the tool, Penn & Teller have earned star status. Not bad for a couple of guys who merely wanted to make enough money to eat and sleep. "My wildest dreams were that I would be able to support myself doing what I wanted to do," Penn said. "Teller and I did that within a year of working together. And that was shocking to me. Deep in my heart, I didn't think I had a chance."

 

Now people come up to him in restaurants and on the street to commend him for his work. Penn says he would just as soon pass on mega-star status. "I've been out with Don Johnson, I've been out with Madonna - neither in dating situations - and there is a good amount of inconvenience that comes with real fame," he says.

 

But who's to say they may not feel the heat of a manic public themselves? Unless they are careful, Penn & Teller are going to continue climbing in popularity by doing the same things that have gotten them this far, mixing comedy, magic, jug­gling, and anything else they jolly well please into the hottest show around.

 

(Dave Jones is a Juggler's World staff writer living in Altoona, Penn.)