Three Short Ventriloquist’s Routines for Today’s Ventriloquist
Routine #1.
Ventriloquist: JACKO
Dummy: JACQUES
JACKO: What kayos the routine is your lapsing into your native tongue. We get all the way through the background, the buildup, and then when it’s time for the payoff—you deliver in French. And it dies, the line dies, Jacques. Our English-only-speaking audience doesn’t understand what you’re talking about. And I don’t understand a word of French, either, Jacques. I don’t know what you’re talking about, and I wrote the routine.
JACQUES: Perhaps we should part, Jacko. Somewhere an error has occurred. (*Pause*) In casting?
JACKO: The routine we’ve been rehearsing has nothing to do with the cultural differences between an American and a Frenchman, if I, the author, remember how it goes. It’s about two Hoosiers watching a football game together, remember? And yet, not only do you speak French at crucial moments, you dress and act French. That beret, really. And that stick of bread you always have under your arm—Who in Indiana has bread in their armpit, Jacques?
JACQUES: Yes, my *baguette.* What can I say? I miss Paris. My friend, I’m leaving.
JACKO: Yes. I think it’s best that we part.
JACQUES: *Arrivederci.*
JACKO: You did it again!
JACQUES: That’s not even French, idiot.
Routine #2.
Ventriloquist: BOB
Dummy: BOBBETTE
BOB: What I think isn’t clicking in our teamwork is the different-sex angle. Most ventriloquist-dummy partnerships are same sex, have you noticed? And they’re not about sex at all.
BOBBETTE: Of course I’ve noticed, darling.
BOB: You see there? You called me ‘darling.’ A sex thing has crept in.
BOBBETTE: You think?
BOB: It’s inevitable. Because what kind of a relationship are a male ventriloquist and a female dummy going to have, strange as that sounds? We can’t just be pals, can we? Acquaintances? And your voice is wrong.
BOBBETTE: My voice, Bob? What’s wrong with my voice?
BOB: Part of the benefit of a same-sex team is that the ventriloquist, me, doesn’t need to strain his voice to approximate the sound of the opposite sex. When you talk, Bobbett, my throat kills me. All night after a show, I’m taking hot tea with honey.
BOBBETTE: That’s it. I can’t take any more of your complaints. I’m leaving. You don’t understand women anyway. Never did, never will.
BOB: It’s just as well you’re going. I met a new dummy, Hank.
BOBBETTE: Screw you! And double-screw Hank!
Routine #3.
Ventriloquist: himself
Dummy: a wooden BOARD
VENTRILOQUIST: I feel that the act is too free-form at this point. Once the initial shock of your appearance passes—and I grant you it’s funny for the audience up to that point, seeing a dummy that’s just a plain plank of wood—the pressure drops and there’s no real follow-through.
BOARD: I see. You want structure. Confines. Pre-established harmony. (*Pause*) A script?
VENTRILOQUIST: Just a path, an outline. Since you lack human qualities and are a mere piece of wood, what sort of dialogue can we have? You have no name, no costume, not even an accent that lends you individuality. I feel hemmed in by your blankness, your unnameableness. If you were called Mortimer, or Howdy…what things I could accomplish then!
BOARD: Could we not simply call me, the Wood with No Name?
VENTRILOQUIST: I’m thinking the Wood without Qualities is better, since even as wood you are no particular object. Uncarved, unpainted, unfashioned in any way, you are the Undummy.
BOARD: You see, my life experience is such that I have formed no particular identity. My defining moment has been my choice to remain undefined.
VENTRILOQUIST: And from this we forge an act? Make folks laugh? For this we charge admission? Suppose I draw some needle marks on you, right there by your knot, and call you Smacky. Wouldn’t you like to try that?
BOARD: How many times do I have to tell you that I’m plain wood? You always deny my true nature! Oh, and one more thing: I quit.
VENTRILOQUIST: All right, how about we do one where I drink a glass of water while you explain what kind of tree you came from?
BOARD: *Sheesh*!
Mike Fowler is a great guy. Please buy the new projects from Boom! For Real and Sweet Fancy Moses. See websites for ordering information.