At the zoo’s mini-amphitheater where the show is held every weekend until June 10, Ony Carcamo is setting up the stage for his Laff N Learn presentation. Wearing a safari outfit complete with an Army camouflage cap, Ony works on his makeshift stage. He hangs the yellow Laff N Learn streamer to serve as backdrop and tests the portable sound system. "We’re starting," he tells the audience.
About a hundred children sit at the foot of the stage, eagerly awaiting Ony’s show. Some of them have probably seen him perform before, maybe at the zoo or on television. "Isn’t he the one on Channel 2?" asks one boy.
Befitting the venue, Ony’s show today is about the environment. He begins by introducing his animal friends–Dodong the dodo bird; Lulu the possum and Ranggo the orangutan. They talk, sing and teach the children to protect animals, to throw food wrappers in the trash can and generally, to care for their surroundings.
Ony reserves his celebrity puppet Kennet P for the last part of the show. In all his shows, it is Kennet who summarizes the lessons taught to the kids. And being a kid himself (Kennet is an eternal six-year-old), the children identify with him.
"I’ve learned through experience that the best way to communicate to children is to keep my mouth shut," Ony says. "It’s best to let my friends do the talking. They believe him more than they believe me."
Ony, 34, may be a newcomer in the art of dummy talk, but he has probably accomplished more than many old-timers. An accomplished writer (he has won at least four Palanca awards for one-act play, poetry and short story writing), amateur painter, humor columnist, screenwriter and songwriter, Ony has one thing that sets him apart from other ventriloquists–he knows how to sell himself.
He worked for 11 years as creative director of a big advertising firm before he decided to become a vent. Thus he knows what advertisers want.
"Companies now are looking for cheaper but effective ways to promote their products. And I tell them ventriloquism is one sure way to get their message across, especially to children."
The Manila Zoo doesn’t pay Ony for his shows. Nor do his audience. Nestle Philippines and Universal Robina Corp. do, and he makes sure the Nido milk and Hello wafrets get prominent mention in his and his puppets’ dialogues.
"I make the children say ‘Hello’ to my puppets. And when my puppets say ‘Hello’, the children should answer ‘Nido.’ It’s a subtle product endorsement," he says. "If there’ll be no sponsors, shows like this will die. You first have to sell the magic to the sponsors."
Magic. Ony has been fascinated with magic since he was 11. He remembers his father giving him a magic set for his birthday which he used in performing in school programs.
And ventriloquism is nothing but magic.
Ony says that what all ventriloquists like him do is nothing but create an illusion that an inanimate object, say a wooden dummy, moves and talks. They do this by conjuring a voice without moving their lips. The trick is in the tongue’s movement and apt substitution of difficult consonants such as B, F, M, P, V and W by diverting the airflow from the belly (venter means belly, and loqui means to speak) to the head’s articulators.
Ony reveals that what he is doing would have gotten him burned at the stake 300 years ago. For a long time ventriloquism belonged to the occult, specifically to necromancers who purported to speak to the dead. Vivian Vox, the author of I Can See Your Lips Moving: The History of Ventriloquism, said that throughout the Middle Ages, the source of disembodied voices was believed to be a demon living in the ventriloquist’s body. No wonder these artists suffered the fate of witches.
Ventriloquism didn’t shed its "devil’s art" reputation until the mid-18th century, when someone thought to dignify the voices with the use of puppets. A talking doll, after all, is much less frightening than a talking severed head.
Englishman Fred Russel, the father of modern ventriloquism, was the first man known to seat a puppet on his knee. He did it in 1846. From thereon, ventriloquism became accepted as a form of entertainment.
Vox said the advent of movies in the 1920s nearly killed ventriloquism. Until Edgar Bergen, the father of Murphy Brown’s Candice Bergen, hit the scene, starting in vaudeville and rising to true fame as a radio entertainer in the 1930s. His puppet Charlie McCarthy became the most popular dummy in history. It is now proudly displayed in the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C.
Ony studied Bergen and other ventriloquists like Paul Stadelman before going full-time into ventriloquism. He bought the limited books available (he got one at Gary Lising’s bookstore) and searched for teachers. He only found two–Lou Hilario, who is more a magician, and Jun Urbano, who is more known for his Mongolian character Mr. Shoolie.
Hilario sold Ony two of his puppets (Lulu the possum and Ka Lario the old man) and Urbano lent him the priceless Kiko, a black dummy that originally belonged to his father Manuel Conde, the movie director known for portraying Juan Tamad.
"Lou and Banong (Urbano) were both avid ventriloquists, but they never pursued the art," Ony explains. "So they helped me when I told them I’m really interested."
To be good, Ony knows he has to practice. He has a full-size mirror in his room where he can see himself, his unmoving lips and his dummies’ movements perfectly.
He also practices inside his car. One time, he carried Ranggo the orangutan on his left hand and talked with him while stuck in traffic. "Those who pass by couldn’t resist looking," he chuckles.
Ony reveals that his puppets sometimes surprise him during shows. He can’t explain how it happens, but the puppets, especially Kennet, seem to take on a life of their own when they’re in front of an audience. Even though Ony manipulates their brain stem or the head stick, there are times that he doesn’t know what the puppet would do next.
"It reaches a point when the puppet becomes the extension of your subconscious, your alter-ego," he says. "Sometimes Kennet even insults me and I get genuinely shocked."
Ony says great ventriloquists such as Bergen also had similar experiences. Bergen, according to him, was even worse. After spending countless hours with Charlie McCarthy, he often finds himself unconsciously talking in the puppet’s voice. He treated Charlie like his own son, even giving him his own room. His daughter Candice said that she considered Charlie a competitor for her father’s attention.
Ony does not want this to happen to Kennet. His only daughter Audrey, now three years old, considers the dummy more of an older brother who reads her bedtime stories.
"She listens to Kennet. She follows him when he tells her to eat and sleep early. Minsan mas sinusunod pa nga niya si Kennet kaysa sa amin ni Yolly (his wife)," he says.
Ony’s problem now is how to tell Audrey that Kennet is not a living being and that he doesn’t really "sleep" inside a suitcase.
"Maybe when she gets older, she’ll know that it is I who is speaking to her," he says, adding, "And maybe she’ll appreciate the art and learn it too," he said.
Ony Carcamo also holds ventriloquism workshops. Those who are interested can contact him at 0917-3846590. His Manila Zoo show will run until June 10.