The Irish Times Chuck Wood is angrier than the average teenager. He's a leering, foul-mouthed sociopath who spits, swears and projectile-vomits over people without warning. Every now and then he is possessed; his eyes go red and he shouts, "I had that dream again last night. The killing dream. You were in it." But his main point of demarcation from other teenagers is that Chuck is a dummy. Voiced by manic American David Strassman, Chuck is the main, and by far most evil, character in the nine-puppet, two hour halo of hilarity that is Dummy. At no point in the proceedings are you in doubt that you are watching a ventriloquy show - Ted E Bare, the cutest puppet, says at one point 'notice how we don't talk when he laughs' - but yet your neck cranes to the puppets whenever a character's voice is heard. his reviewer even found himself wondering where Chuck's radio microphone was when noticing that Strassman was wearing one. The puppets are so angst-ridden as to appear hyper-real. Chuck wants to be 'a real boy.' Ted E Bare - who bares (groan - ed) a remarkable resemblance to Judge from Wanderly Wagon - is having a 'bad fur day' and worries that he is fat. Sid Arthur, a beaver, wants to make it in show-business and so has to audition to replace Chuck who is dropped for being evil. Strassman has managed to do what, on the face of it, would have seemed near-impossible, he has made ventriloquy hip and cool. Dummy is a rollercoaster ride of fun and you'd be a fool to yourself and a burden on others if you missed it (well, either that or you have no sense of adventure and humour). Pádraig Collins

 

West Australian April 6 2001 By Michael Day Strassman supreme EVEN before ventriloquist David Strassman came on stage, his offstage threats about mobile phones had the capacity crowd laughing. The volume increased when Strassman appeared carrying his new character, Grandpa Ted E. Bare, and did not drop all evening. Abuse is an integral part of Strassman's humour and he started off, through Grandpa, by calling everyone "chowderheads". The use of a foreign term to Australian audiences was misleading because there was plenty of evidence to come of a master entertainer's ability to make his show local. Strassman teased the Eagles, made references to Telstra, to the shark at Cottesloe and even to Rottnest. He unwrapped one finely honed skill after another. An example was when he risked inviting audience questions to test the psychic powers of puppet Chuck Wood. His replies were lightning fast and funny, including one trumping a woman who asked him to guess her bra size. A heckler who took him on paid the hilarious price. Strassman enticed volunteers but exercised the artistic discipline to avoid humiliating them - a cheap technique of some hypnotists - and created one of the highlights of the show. Because Strassman is the PhD of ventriloquism, it may sometimes escape the audience how clever he is at physical manipulation of the puppets. He has enhanced that ability with astounding mechanical and robotic devices. The first instinct of an audience is to inspect the ventriloquist to see how the voice transfers from his vocal cords to the puppet - do the lips move, is the mouth open, are there ripples in the neck? Strassman is the sultan of surreptitiousness. A flicker of a lip move becomes a smile, a diversion directs an impertinent stare elsewhere. The core of his gift is to make the puppet seem a live, thinking, talking, autonomous creature. It is all very well to do it with Chuck Wood, who looks like a tiny human but it is a mystery, in retrospect, how he gets adults to listen to a bear, a private eye dolphin, a beaver or a scary alien. Strassman took an occasional break from the exhausting demands of self-dialogue but they were filled in by Sydney comedian Stef Torak, whose rap sampling was a treat. The audience members were mostly in their late teens and 20s though there was a fair sprinkling of the middle-aged. Quite a few clutched teddy bears. The show comes with a recommendation that children under 13 should not attend. Many of the jokes would be above their heads or too far below the belt for them. Through the use of his puppets the entertainer was able to make explicit sexual references, swear, threaten violence and issue put-downs relating to physical characteristics which might not be thought funny by mixed audiences if delivered by a stand-up comedian - but in this context had them howling with laughter. Strassman could have been tempted to be cruder but he seemed to have judged his audience's taste with precision. Another moderating influence was the character Ted E. Bare, whose innocence is the counter to the malevolent Chuck. Those looking for sophisticated humour and social commentary will not find it but Strassman indicated in a couple of jokes that he could move upmarket if he wanted. A brilliant theme exemplifying this potential is the running gag where he breaks the spell - by having the puppets point out he produces their voices - and then quickly casts the same spell back again over his thralls. On reflection, there is a suspicion Strassman's occasional "mistakes" with the voices are just a device which not only extracts even more laughter but binds us to him. It temporarily reassures us to think the god who controls these puppets is human like us - but we are soon reminded we are wrong.