THE TWO AND ONLY
At the Atlantic Theater, 336 W. 20th St. Call Telecharge, (212) 239-6200.
JAY Johnson has the world on his arm – or so it seems when the master ventriloquist makes the inanimate spring to life
In “The Two and Only,” his 90-minute show at Chelsea’s Atlantic Theater, Johnson proves himself a flawlessly undetectable genius at throwing his voice everywhere and into everything, including a melodramatic, egomanical vulture.
“I am the bird of death,” the bird insists, and when the audience laughs, the bird bursts into a vulturish version of “My Way” (sample line: “I eat them my way”).
A smart and personable man, Johnson understands superbly the dynamics of his craft. That is, he, the human, must be the calm, the reasonable one and the puppet, the excitable, the combustible one. As he wanders about the stage, opening up one suitcase after another, he offers a number of hilarious, sharp examples.
After a rambling intro, Johnson settles into telling his own personal story. He was a shy, lonely Texas boy who one day discovered something magical, the art of conversing with his wooden friend Squeaky. He began to entertain his family and was soon working fairs.
At 18, he boldly called up retired master puppeteer Arthur Sieving in Illinois and asked him to carve him a professional Squeaky. The two got talking and the 71-year-old master agreed. They stayed friends for years.
Cut to ’70s Los Angeles, when Johnson was auditioning for a role as a ventriloquist on the prime-time soap-opera parody “Soap.”
The “Soap” people liked Jay but demanded that Squeaky be replaced by a wiseguy, hippie puppet named Bob, with whom Johnson has an acrimonious “meeting.” Despite the hostility between ventriloquist and dummy, “Soap” and Jay are a hit.
All in all, “The Two and Only” is a marvelous illustration of how tradition, madness and love go into the making of an art form – in this case, ventriloquism.