Ventriloquist Jay Johnson Crisp and Poignant at Landmark

"If you buy a doll for a boy from Texas, you might as well send him to New York!” That’s one of the punch lines in ventriloquist Jay Johnson’s sometimes uproarious, sometimes poignant tour de force staged at on Friday, March 11. Jay Johnson’s return to New York on the Port Washington stage delighted and amazed the Long Island audience, many of whom were seeing their first live performance of a world class ventriloquist.

From the outset, which featured a Jay Johnson: The Two and Only recording asking the audience to turn off any “noisy life support systems,” the audience knew they’d be in for a laugh or two. They soon learned that there would be no dummies on Soap alum Johnson’s stage – “Wooden Americans,” Johnson admits, but all witty, caustic or poignant characters.

Co-created by Murphy Cross ("Meredith" in Numb3rs) and Paul Kreppel ("Sonny Mann" in It’s a Living), The Two and Only won a Tony Award in 2007.

Johnson reminds us that we want to be taught – at least a little. Learning about plosives and stop consonants proves painless and easy. A little etiology of “ventriloquism” is just fine. He concedes that for some viewers, ventriloquism is a black art which seems to hold a mirror to some deeply buried fears. Johnson is aware of this. “Remember Chuckie!” snarls one of the Wooden American cast members. But by the time Johnson does a phone-only pizza parlor routine featuring only a handset and three voices (in addition to his own), the audience has developed an admiring appreciation for the craft.

Some of Johnson’s voices must originate from his enduring dimples. One look at those dimples, and it’s clear that cuddly and proper “Squeaky,” Johnson’s first professional side man, had a lot in common with Johnson himself. Talent agencies list Jay Johnson as a comedy act, and laughter was abundant at the Main Street venue, but this facile classification misses the point. Johnson wants the curious relationship that magic has with a no-nonsense, science-worshipping culture to be carried on the shoulders of his career -- to ring out, much as his ventriloquist’s version of “My Way” rings out. 

Johnson’s menagerie impressed the Landmark audience not only with its number but with the diversity: a Spalding ball (“Spaulding” [sic]), a vulture (“Nethermore”), a monkey (“Darwin”), a nutcracker, a snake (“Amigo”), a disembodied post-execution head (“Long John La Feat”), Johnson’s career-launching Squeaky, a dry erase board brought jarringly to life, and Soap’s ever-caustic and dismissive Bob.

Published reviews of the show, which has toured for several years now, discuss many of the show’s characters, but for some reason have little to say about Darwin. Darwin’s Don Rickles-aping [sic] over-the-top persona requires virtuosic vocalizations -- not to mention diatribes – to be produced by Johnson, while he simultaneously allows shot after reaction shot to wash across his face. If the audience response was inadequate, Darwin would twist himself around the mic stand and snarl at a member of the audience, “It’s a monkey joke, lady!” (Jay Johnson’s web site is www.monkeyjoke.com.)

Landmark proved itself a perfect vessel for The Two and Only. As a few in the audience reminded themselves, earlier generations of locals attended the building in its previous life as a schoolhouse. More than a few of them retrieved memories of Jerry Mahoney, a doll some of the students would have had their parents order from Sears.

A ventriloquist is above all a storyteller. When The Two and Only turned to his mentor Arthur Sieving, Johnson eschews puppetry for a straightforward two voice dialog. Johnson’s heartfelt reminiscences recounted how he persuaded Sieving to build Squeaky, though Sieving had retired from puppet making, and then how they’d become close. Johnson tells the audience that during the making of Squeaky, Sieving wrote him daily progress letters.  This part of the show could well have been performed by Rene Auberjonois, Fionnula Flanagan or at Isaiah Sheffer for PRI radio's Selected Shorts. In other words, despite, or perhaps because of his ambitious road warrior schedule, Johnson has matured into a reader-actor whose vocal acrobatics can be tamed to good effect at the service of a moving narrative. That moving story told of a memorable meeting with Sieving, an Alice in Wonderland-style tea party comprised of Sieving, Johnson and their distinctive characters. Perhaps this special ability derives from the need for a ventriloquist to learn two disparate parts so well so that an audience’s attention does not stray from the intended focus.

The dedication required to build this career was made clearer when Johnson explained that early in his career he had a gig with Six Flags over Georgia. It was an engagement that required no less than 918 performances.

A murmur went through the crowd when Johnson, paying tribute to his early influences, mentioned New York City native Shari Lewis (real name Sonia Phyllis Hurwitz) and her much-loved Lamb Chop. There is more than a passing resemblance between Lewis and Johnson in their effective use of strongly independent puppet characters. Prickly puppet personalities opposite their masters’ seemingly gentle natures fostered an agreeable duality.

There was a thinly concealed would-be punch line laced throughout the show. As Johnson localized the performance with references to “Great Neck,” the audience whispered “Port Washington” to themselves, but by the end of the performance Johnson’s purpose was abundantly clear.  Johnson owned all of Long Island and had been throwing his voice from Great Neck to Port Washington the whole night.

Laughter carried the evening, but it was magic which brought back Springfield’s Arthur and Blanche Sieving, Catherine Damon (“Mary Campbell”), Richard Mulligan (“Burt Campbell”), Jon Arthur Goerss (Big Jon, whose Sparkie inspired a young Jay Johnson), Shari Lewis, Steve Allen, Edgar Bergen, and Uncle Charlie. It’s enough to give “necromancer” a good name.

The next performance at is on March 26, featuring the Pan-Latin ensemble, Sol y Canto.