Puppet Kaos -

I just saw a link to this video over at the PuppetVision blog, and I totally love it! It’s called Worm Circus, and it’s exactly what the name suggests: a bunch of worms performing tricks! I love this video. The worms are such simple puppets. They don’t have faces and they don’t use words. Everything is conveyed through body movement and sound effects/music produced by kazoos. It’s totally entertaining, take a look!

The crowd cheers when the worms perform their fancy tricks successfully. What’s even more hilarious is the different reactions of the worms when a trick fails. These great reactions make them so alive. And then they have some impressions of classic movie scenes as well. Take a look. It’s 10 minutes of great entertainment brought to you by some very talented worms!

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Though I’m more influenced by Taiwanese puppetry than Chinese puppetry, the shadow puppets thing I did was mostly inspired by one type of Chinese puppetry called Pi Ying Xi (皮影戲). It literally translates to “leather shadow drama”. The puppets are often made of leather, since paper is not as durable and plastic wasn’t available back then. This is a video of what it looks like.

Note that they used colors. Some puppet theatre choose not to use colors and just do it in black and white. They have different feels to them.

This next footage is how the puppets are actually performed behind the scenes… literally.

Next up… how I made my own shadow puppet show in Episode 14 - Tofu. (No, I didn’t use leather.)

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Finally, I saw Avenue Q, the show that I’ve wanted to see for almost four years, since Friday, January 16, 2004. I first wanted to see this show when I heard Stan played us the soundtrack during the van ride to the LCC retreat. Ah, good old times, the school doesn’t even allow those vanpools anymore because they consider it dangerous… but that’s beside the point. I’m just giving you an idea of how I first knew about Avenue Q.

Anyway, when we heard the songs, everyone was really entertained by what they were hearing. “It Sucks to be Me”? “If You Were Gay”? “Internet Is for Porn”? “The More You Love Someone (the More You Want to Kill Them)”? The songs were hilarious, and when Stan said that it’s a puppet show, I thought, “Man, I’ve got to see this!” And finally, it’s on tour and came to Los Angeles!

And now, let the review begin. If you haven’t seen the show…
WARNING: Lots of spoilers ahead!!!

Overall: Entertaining and thoroughly enjoyable

Overall, it was a lot of fun. The overall tone is pretty light-hearted. The songs are hilarious, while at the same time, have lots of truisms in them. I was no longer cracking up during the songs, because I’ve already listened to the soundtrack about a hundred times and know exactly which line is coming up, but my friend, who has only heard of “Everyone’s a lil bit Racist” was laughing hard throughout, and so is the rest of the crowd. Still, watching the songs performed still brought a smile to my face. Many things still cracked me up, like the conversation between songs (for example, “He useless. Tell him to stay in closet.”) and the stage effects (for example, Christmas Eve’s dress). After all, an important element in comedy is surprise, and this show certainly does lack it. And it was good to see the show. I’d totally be down to watch it again.

The songs

I think they at least wrote some of the songs before they even wrote the story. The song writers drew more from common experiences from real life than from the actual characters in the story, I felt, so there’s elements for every single member of the audience to identify with. We’ve all been through and/or are still encountering things like finding a purpose, not knowing what to do after college, frustrations at work, race issues, money issues, love issues, etc. The story was more or less an excuse to sing those songs, and I, for one, dig that kind of writing. It works for this show.

“Avenue Q Theme”: Before I saw the show, I was wondering what they were going to do with this song, because “It Sucks to be Me”, the song that introduces most character, is after it. I was wondering if they were going to have the whole cast sing it on stage, but that seem redundant. I was thinking maybe they’d just play it while showing nothing on stage, but that might be kinda boring and strange. So what did they do? They showed a cute cartoon on the screens. It was cute and it was a good set-up that basically says, “Hey audience, pay attention. I’m a device that we’ll be using in the show throughout.”

What Do You Do With a B.A. in English / It Sucks to Be Me: This is actually my favorite track on the soundtrack. Maybe it’s because I’ve seen it performed so many times when Avenue Q appeared on Tony Awards and many talk shows. I like to sing the “What Do You Do With a B.A. in English” part a lot. When they appeared on TV, they usually don’t sing that part. The staging and lighting came out to be exactly what I expected. No surprise to me, but for most people, I think it’s a good introduction for people not already familiar with these characters. Many things were established: what their names are, what they do, what their problems are, what annoys them… were all laid out there. I like the quick introduction.

Purpose: In the recording, after Princeton sang “It’s a sign!”, he broke into this grand, exubirant musical number about finding his purpose. In the show, he waited a little bit and sang the next stanza in more of an introspective kind of voice before building up to the big fancy routine with boxes. I thought it worked very well. I liked the change there.

The Internet is for Porn: I like how the window frames lit up when “normal people” appeared at the windows. What a live show has that a CD is missing is the comical timings, gestures and audience responses. Here Trekkie Monster definitely took more time to give Kate strange looks when Kate said “normal people don’t sit at home and look at porn on the internet.” before saying “You have no idea!” I like the pause there.

(I Can Make You Feel) Special: I’ve seen this song performed in the Royalty Variety Performance (on YouTube, of course, since I’m not royalty), but for that performance, the puppeteer had the whole stage to work with and in the actual show, she interacted with the “audience” that’s sitting on stage (Gary Coleman, Kate Monster, Trekkie Monster, Brian, Princeton, etc.). In terms of puppeteering, I think the Royalty Variety Performance one did a better job, but I’m not sure if it’s because in the actual show she’s working with a more confined space, and had to hit certain spots on the stage to interact with certain characters.

Fantasies Come True: I really like the stage effects (more on that later). This was certainly dreamy.

There’s a Fine, Fine Line: This song certainly got a lot of the “aww…” reaction from the crowd… and I still get that even though I’ve already heard this song many many times. Kate in a dress is really cute.

There Is Life Outside Your Apartment: This song was kinda random, especially if you just listen to the soundtrack. On stage, there were props and visuals that they interacted with, so that worked much better.

The More You Ruv Someone: Wow, this is certainly Christmas Eve’s moment to shine. I felt the actress certainly brought “it” to the stage. This was awesome.

I Wish I Could Go Back to College: Ah, two years out of college and I can certainly feel this song. Heck, even my friend who’s just three months out of college can feel it. Ah, this is life.

The Money Song: When I saw this song performed at one of the fund-raisers (video no longer available on YouTube), they actually passed out hats. In the show, they passed out hats too, but I don’t know if people actually put money in. It was good to see. Musicals don’t usually interact with the audience that much than the more experimental productions.

For Now: In this part, there are many puppets on stage and the puppeteers are not necessarily singing for the puppet they are holding. It’s interesting to watch (for me, anyway). The hugs at the end are clever, because the people leaving the stage can steal puppets that’s no longer needed from puppeteers that need to stay on stage. There was an old post I wrote about this routine, but alas, the video is also no longer available.

Stage Effects

The screens: Ever since the device is introduced in the beginning, it’s been used throughout, especially when Princeton is thinking about his “purpose”. They made the clips they show Sesame Street / children’s educational television-ish. I like the countdown to intermission, and the one night stand / five night stands joke. And the “I guess I’ll give it a shot” (glass breaks) “Ah!!” line finally made sense. That was a fun way of playing with props. Heck, when you have puppets, you pretty much just go break any rule just because you can. I know I do that in my videos. My puppets play with things on the screen (like captions and stuff) all the time.

Fantasies Come True: In this song, Nikki and Rod’s bedrooms were shown… but the beds were vertical. This reminded me of this video of a bed scene done vertically… too bad it’s in Chinese though. And then the beds flying away was an interesting effect, certainly adding to the fantasy theme, along with the dry ice. And one puppet holding another up and spin around? Great way to make fun of movie/TV cliches while they don’t have any legs (I guess that’d be making fun of the fact that they are puppets too).

Brian and Christmas Eve’s wedding: Wow, what an awesome wedding dress. And then when “purpose” turned into “propose” on the screen, and Princeton started to have these scary thoughts… I really liked the big heads they put on Brian and Christmas Eve to make them look like Princeton and Kate Monster, and then the huge head of Kate Monster appearing from the back of the stage certainly was a surprise that cracked me up.

The stage: I like the stage. It looked just like a building that’s nothing special, but there are a lot of interesting things you can do with it. Besides using them as doors, entrances and exits, I really like the fact that they had many windows. That way, characters can just open their windows and join in the song any time without making a formal entrance. The window frames light up which is a good effect to draw attention. The same wall can also be Kate’s place, Nikki and Rod’s room, the Around-the-Clock Cafe and many more through the use of different lightings, displays, and so on. I really like how they used the same wall for all these things.

The callbacks

I really like callbacks. When Princeton was picturing himself as different kinds of people by placing his face onto pictures, that was a perfect introduction for the later wedding routine. And Trekkie Monster’s “for porn” theme throughout, and that “Gary Coleman!” made the audience smile. I love callbacks.

The randomness

The boxes singing “Purpose” with Princeton was kinda random… and then there’s the Idea Bears. They are so stupid? (evil?) and whiny. It took me a lil bit to remember what they sound like. I think they sounded a bit like Leona and Lionel from Between the Lions when they were whining (of course, the lions weren’t constantly whining like the two bears).

The conclusion

Are we finally at the conclusion? (And wow, you are still reading?) If I didn’t love the show, I wouldn’t write so much about it, eh? I think that part is pretty obvious. Anyway, the show will only be in Los Angeles until this Sunday so if you are in Los Angeles and want to see it, find tickets quick!
Here’s the link to Avenue Q at Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles.
Here’s the tour schedule. Check to see if it’s coming to a city near you!

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In case you didn’t already know, the winner of this season’s “America’s Got Talent” is Terry Fator. Terry Fator is a ventriloquist, impressionist and puppeteer, all wrapped up in one. Recently I saw a bunch of videos of Terry Fator’s performances on America’s Got Talent on a post from HowToThrowYourVoice.com and man, I was so blown away by his performances. He’s not only a skillful ventriloquist, but he also has great timing, does great impressions, and is very charasmatic.

Although ventriloquism literally means talking from stomach, I’ve learned that it’s actually a lot like regular talking in terms of where the sounds are produced (still the voicebox and mouth). The difference is that you want to hide your lip movements to appear as if you are not speaking. If you are interested, here’s a web page about ventriquolism that I found to be very useful. Believe it or not, ventriloquism is actually not that hard!

Of course, I have to say that it still takes a lot of practice to be a great ventriloquist. When I say that it’s not hard, I’m saying that it’s not difficult to learn the basics. This is like saying, it takes a lot of practice to become a great painter, but it should not be that difficult to pick up a paint brush, dip it in paint, and run it across the surface of the paper. This is also like saying, it takes a lot of practice to become a pianist, but it’s not that hard to put your fingers on a keyboard to produce sounds. So, it’s not that difficult to get started but it takes lots of work to refine the skill. When you read this post, keep in mind that I’ve only started practicing since a week ago and while I consider it a fun thing to try, I’ve never intended to become an expert in it. With that in mind, here’s the basics as I understand it.

1. Ventriloquism is all about hiding lip movements: There are many words that you already know how to say without moving your lips. For example, say “egg” in front of a mirror and pay attention to your mouth. Now, depends on how you speak, you might have your mouth more wide-open when you are saying the Eh sound and more closed when you make the G sound because you are done saying the word, but say it again… and this time, try to keep your mouth in the same shape throughout. It should not be hard if you consciously try it. You can try to say other words or sentences too. Now try saying it with a big grin that shows teeth. If you can do it, you already know the basics of ventriquolism!

2. Avoid or modify sounds that require lip movements: Some sounds require lip movements. For example, the F sound requires your upper teeth to touch your lower lip, the M sound requires you to bring your upper and lower lips together, the W sound requires you to round your lips, etc. Now, it’s physically impossible to pronounce these words correctly without moving your lips, so there are a few ways of dealing with this.

The first way is to mentally filter the things you are about to say. Instead of “picking” something, which has the P sound that requires you to move your lips, say “choosing” something. If you don’t say that words that requires your lips to move, then you won’t have trouble hiding your lip movements. The sounds to watch out for are B, P, V, F, M, Th, Q, W.

The second way is to replace or modify certain sounds. This is a lot like talking with an accent. For example, instead of “this” and “that”, you want to say “dis” and “dat”. People will still understand you, because people will substitute in what they think should be the correct word to go in there. Likewise, “fantastic” would become “hantastic” or “hoo-antastic”.

The third way is to move your lips anyway, but while you do so, hide your mouth movement somehow. This is the only way to go if you want to pronounce every word correctly. You can accompany the lip movement with some head movements too so people don’t pay as much attention. You can practice to keep your mouth as closed as possible so the lip movements are subtle and hard to see. You can use good puppeteering skills to distract the audience to look at the puppet instead of you. But whatever you do, you are like a magician. You want your audience to look at something else (your puppet) so they don’t pay as much attention to what you are really doing.

3. Practice with different mouth shapes: Maybe you already figure out how to speak without moving your lips with a huge grin (I like think of it as pretending to speak like someone with a frozen fake grin because the botox or facelift had gone wrong), but since you should be reacting to what the puppet is saying, you need to be able to do it with different facial expressiosns (hence different mouth shapes).

4. Practice, practice, practice: Those are pretty much the basics, I guess. But to become really good at this, you want to practice and practice some more to perfect the skill. You want to be able to switch back and forth between ventriloquism and regular speak very quickly and naturally. You want to practice showing one expression on your face and showing another expression on the puppet’s face because you are two different characters. You want to practice so that your lips are very still when the puppet is supposed to be doing the talking. You want to practice to have confidence when you are performing too.

And so that’s Ventriloquism 101! (That’s an exclamation mark after the sentence, not 101 factorial.) I hope this has been helpful for anyone reading this that’s trying to get started.

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I found this video of the ending of Avenue Q. Although it’s for the MDA fund raiser and not done on the actual stage, I like what they did with the staging a lot. It’s interesting to see it cuz it’s different from what I pictured. When I listened to the soundtrack, I imagined the whole cast (the important characters anyway) on stage singing the finale and all stay on stage until the music ends and lights go off. Well, that’s not the case. Everybody walked off the stage except the main character Princeton to sing the last line. I actually really like the way they handled it. There are friends along the way. They can be there for you, to teach you things, to share their thoughts and feelings with you, but in the end, there are things that you just need to ponder and figure out yourself. While everybody’s leaving, Christmas Eve, the therapist with a warm and caring heart, stayed a little longer to give Princeton a hug. And then finally he gave Kate Monster, his special friend, a kiss on her cheek before she left. I really like this sequence. They had the friends leave the stage in the order of regular friends, extra caring friend, and that special friend. They can’t be with you 24-7, but the more they care, the more they’ll stay around (of course, that’s not necessarily true in real life but it is for a musical number like this anyway). Eventually, they all go back home and until you see them next time, that’s the time for introspection. That’s when you ponder and realize things.

Man, if I’ve watched everything as seriously and carefully as I watch puppet shows, I would probably be a good director. But anyway, there’s two moments with puppets that I really like in this video. One is that moment Princeton took before he sang the last line “everything in life is only for now”. I can feel the puppet thinking, and having and epiphany. That’s good puppeteering. And the other moment I like is when Princeton kissed Kate Monster on the cheek. I don’t know. There’s just something really cute about a muppet kissing another muppet when it’s done well. That’s a cute moment there.

PS. I watched this video many times to figure out who took Lucy the Slut from Stephanie D’Abruzzo cuz she was carrying two puppets at the beginning but only Kate Monster at the end. That’s clever staging there.

EDIT (Oct 13, 2007): The video is no longer available.

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