Something New
Do you realize that you are just 1/2 of a relationship? Your puppet of the moment is the other half. What we are going to attempt to do today is make you understand the importance of your relationship with your puppet.
You might think that you are in charge and to some degree you are. You are also an actor. In the same way your puppet is also an actor. There are some complex details that make your kind of acting a little more difficult than traditional acting, but there are also things about Ventriloquism that makes this kind of acting much easier and certainly MUCH more predictable.
Lets stop and consider famous teams of Actors that we all know.
Lets start with the famous lifetime partnership of Burns and Allen. For those who may not be old enough, it is George Burns and Gracie Allen. Their partnership was also the partnership of a couple who were deeply in love with each other.
Sometimes in watching them, you could be led to believe that they did not always like each other, but that was where they did a marvelous job of ACTING.
Although Gracie sadly passed away many years before George, George never stopped alluding to missing Gracie for the rest of his life.
Now lets examine the aspects of their stage relationship that made them so very popular with their audience.
Gracie had the role (acting) of just being the dumb female in the house. She played it to the hilt. Folks who knew the two of them off screen have said that mentally Gracie was far sharper than George, but that she was smart enough to play her role of dumb innocence so wonderfully.
At almost every exchange between the two of them, George would make a comment that sounded pretty straight forward. Invariably Gracie would come back with a response that could have only come from someone with no clue what was going on. Then George would look at us (the audience) with the look of “can you believe she just said that?” or “I have to live with this 24/7”.
That was the beauty of their stage relationship. George was always the straight man. Gracie always played the part of the fool. By each of them knowing their role in the acting duo, and each of them playing their role, the sum was far greater than the parts.
Now consider your role with your puppet. Are you the “smart” straight person and your puppet the ditsy buffoon or is it the other way around? Are your statements/questions/comments the right ones to allow your partner to walk right in with the hilarious answer?
However you go about it, the result must be funny. Nobody in this business gets hired to come in and make the audience frown. We all get hired to come in and make the audience laugh and lighten the emotion from their day.
In the coming few weeks, we will examine various types of relationships from ACTORS we are all familiar with. Whether your particular act is straight man/buffoon or some of the rest of the types we will examine, it is important to know how you must act opposite the particular puppet for the type of act you are doing with that character.
You may have several different personalities for yourself, each of which can play differently off of different puppets. If you understand the role that you are filling at the moment, you will be able to more effectively sharpen your craft and become more desired by your audience.
Thats all for this week, we will talk again real soon.
Steve and JET
Great points. I learned much of this as a clown but always good to be reminded.