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Performing Your Ventriloquist Show
There are certain things you can do in a ventriloquist show which will undoubtedly add to the effectiveness. In bidding your puppet friend farewell always say "Good-night" even if you are performing at a matinee, for the other forms, including "Good-bye," must be tabooed on account of their difficulty. "What do you say?" is a useful form of inquiry, and it arrests and secures attention for your ventriloquy. "I have got a ladder" is good, for "ladder" is very easily made clear. "All right," "I'm here," "He is down below," and "Have you got a quarter?" are all useful.
Long conversation in the ventriloquist voice is exhausting and not so effective as short remarks; your natural speech should take up most of the time. Break up the dialogue as much as possible with amusing side remarks, changes from one voice to another, grotesque noises, such as coughing, sneezing, etc., if you can do them well, which allow no time for criticism and amuse much more than a sustained dialogue, which may become tiresome.
People do not look for great thoughts, pretty phrasing and literary finish in a ventriloquy entertainment, and the dialogue has to be written for special requirements and to fit special limitations. Don't use three words where the same effect can be conveyed in one, as ventriloquy dialogue must be brief and interruption should form a strong part of it.
The wit and humor of the vaudeville theater is sometimes criticized and ridiculed by the more discriminating theatergoers, but variety performers aim to supply what experience has taught them will succeed with the masses, and so with ventriloquism you must use such dialogue as you have found to be most effective and amusing.
The better actor the entertainer is the greater will be his success as a ventriloquist. This is true because, like the negative adjunct of speaking with still lips, the histrionic art is an important aid to the real work of entertaining and the sustaining of an illusion while carrying on a conversation with an imaginary person. Although the ventriloquist is the real speaker, the listener's thoughts and emotions are the only ones he is permitted to give outward expression to.
In a ventriloquist show the performer places Tommy in the chair he has just vacated and, after putting Jerry in a box at the back of the stage, apparently forgets all about Tommy and sits down upon him, whereupon Tommy cries out indignantly just as a real negro boy would do under like circumstances.
Another instance is when the ventriloquist, with a worried expression of nervous inquiry, examines the mechanical arrangements of his figures, while the old man follows his movements by turning his head, and apparently catching the entertainer's anxiety, says in a low voice-yet sufficiently loud to be heard all over the house-"Is my string broke, guv'nor?" or when the exhibitor while acknowledging the applause by a bow, causes the old man gravely to inform the audience that the figures are only made of wood.
Always listen to your figures or to the voices of invisible persons as if their remarks were heard by you for the first time. At appropriate points assume an air of anger, surprise, pleasure or consternation in response to your ventriloquy, in order to accentuate and bring out its full significance.
In using figures you should imagine that they speak and you furnish them with characters and humor them, reprimand them, and think, hear and see for them. Do not imitate the performer who comes on to the stage, bows and explains that he intends to give a ventriloquial entertainment, but try to have a more artistic introduction.
Acting as if the figures were real to you, appear surprised or pleased to find the stage already occupied, shake hands with the old man if his arm moves, and have him give an amusing recital of his troubles on the train or elsewhere, then mix yourself with the other automata and get to work.
These are some of the tricks of the trade which will make your ventriloquist show more exciting for your public.
About the Author Are You Interested In Mastering Techniques To Become A Ventriloquist? Download The Complete Ventriloquist Training At: www.ventriloquistpuppets.net
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