I have an idea. If I still performed regularly, I'd steal the idea myself. :-)
Most ventriloquists (and all I've ever seen) usually give their figures a different voice than their own. Kid and baby figures get high squeaky comedic voices, old guys get... well... old guy voices. Cheeky boys get smart-aleck kid voices. But I've never seen a ventriloquist adopt the silly voice permanently as their own, and give their signature character the ventriloquist's real voice. (This is what I think about when I'm not installing eyebrows on foreheads).
The vent with the silly voice could converse with a bevy of other figures with different voices, too. (Think Pee Wee Herman and the playroom of characters he converses with.)
Or, an act could consist of vent AND figures each playing different roles in each routine. For example, Smart Sheriff vent and Dumb Deputy figure, French maitre'de vent and Red Neck diner-figure, Grizzled Baseball Manager vent and Incompetent Baseball player-figure. Back in the 50's, Paul Winchell would do some of this on his TV show.
Or is everybody already doing this and nobody told me about it.
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On that silly voice thing: In order to keep your act strong, you'd have to talk in a silly voice offstage, too, for the rest of your life.
ReplyDeleteThat kind of commitment to your art can have serious ramifications. Few people know this, but Truman Capote started as a ventriloquist and did this very thing. His vent scripts were so good that he eventually dropped the vent act and expanded on his writing.
But, in order to maintain any legitimacy at all, he had to keep the silly voice.
Sad.
It must be true. I just said it.
:-)
Both Jay Johnson and Nina Conti do a voice switch in their act where they get the figure's voice and the figure gets their's. I didn't know that Truman Capote was a ventriloquist, but it does explain his voice. It must be true Phil said it.
ReplyDeleteIt MAY have been me who said it. Or, on the other hand, it COULD have been Truman Capote.
ReplyDeleteAnd you will note...his lips didn't move.
I recently finished a Mountain Man figure and rigged his coonskin cap to talk also. Jedediah brags a lot and the hat puts him down. Still working on routines.
ReplyDeleteBrian