The Rusty Z Hypnosis Show - An Audience Members View by Donna DeMaria

Apr 26, 2015

Greetings, followers of Rusty Z. When I first knew Rusty, it was early in his comedy career, and he was working as stand-up comic James R Zingelman, which I believe he still does from time to time. We recently reconnected, though, and now I have met Rusty Z, Hypnotic Comic Extraordinaire. 

Before my first Rusty Z show, my only experience with stage hypnotists was provided by hokey movies. You know the bits: Girl winds up on a random stage in Vegas, gets hypnotized, and admits she really does love Boy. Or the day after the hapless victim attends a hypnosis show, a phone rings, and he starts doing the chicken dance during his job interview. 

Little did I know—hypnosis is more than a hackneyed comedic film plot contrivance. Yes, hypnosis is entertaining, especially Rusty Z’s spill-your-drink-laughing-so-hard, have-to-keep-your-legs-crossed method. It turns out that watching a hypnosis performance is also an anthropological study—and that’s not a joke. Imagine this: eight people seated on stage, facing an audience. As culture dictates, they are sitting politely still, waiting for instructions needed to participate in the activity. They have been pre-relaxed by laughter and camaraderie. They feel relatively safe, because the construct of entertainer and audience is well known to them. They also feel a little nervous, because they don’t really know what it’s like to be hypnotized. Rusty begins telling them they are relaxed in that soothing voice. They watch and listen with neutral expressions. Then their gazes fade away, their limbs go limp, and they seem to be nodding off. And then, when Rusty gives them them their specific instructions and wakes them up, cultural norms take a back seat, and true personality reigns. 

Now we have the thirty-ish man in a polo shirt, blinking through his thick glasses at the audience with an expression of bemusement. He is the observer, the guy who may not be the life of the party but who can tell you all about it later over a beer. Here is the aging hippie, smiling benignly to let us know he is ready to impart the wisdom of his vast experience. Here is the proper middle-aged lady, focused intently on Rusty, waiting for the next step, ignoring the audience because we are less important than being able to get the next thing right. Here is the confident twenty-something woman laughing at nothing in particular because, I’m guessing, she finds most things in life rather hilarious. In short, they are themselves, as you would see them after knowing them for a long time, having dinner at the local bar and grill. And when they execute their assigned tasks—funny by nature, of course—each is doing it as only she or he can do. When told the person next to her smells bad, the proper lady smiles painfully and turns ever so slightly away, while the laughing girl grabs the neighbor’s hand and asks what the funny smell is. The observer smiles knowingly to himself. The hippie waggles his beard and looks wisely into the distance. All these reactions are within cultural bounds, but each is personal, almost unique, to the individual. 

More stuff happens, funnier stuff, and on through the performance, you get to know them—their habits, their attitudes, their worldviews, their Briggs-Myers score. For me, a student of humanity, it is the best of both worlds—entertainment combined with getting to see how people tick. I love that stuff. So the next time you’re at a Rusty Z gig, watch Rusty of course, ‘cause he da man, after all. But also, pay extra close attention to the Observer, the Hippie, the Proper Lady, and the Laughing Girl. You will learn to know them better than you know your co-worker in the next cube, your college roommate, or even your kids.

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