File puptcrit/puptcrit.0508, message 341


Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2005 16:08:46 -0700
To: puptcrit-driftline.org-AT-lists.driftline.org
From: Bob Stone <bobstone1-AT-earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: Re: [Puptcrit] Madame


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At 10:38 AM 8/16/2005, you wrote:
>At the Center for Puppetry Arts several years back there was a 
>Wayland Flower's exhibit.  I believe in the booklet published for 
>the exhibit it said that Madame was actually made by another 
>puppeteer back when Waylon was still performing with marionettes and 
>visiting with his puppeteer friend.  Wayland just took to this 
>"witch" puppet and the puppeteer ended up giving him the 
>puppet.  From there he started taking this puppet to a local bar and 
>just adlibbing with the customers and one of the customers was an 
>elderly woman who dressed up and wasn't afraid to speak her mind and 
>it was from there that much of the Madame personality and character was taken.
>
>At least that's the way I remember the story going... don't have the 
>booklet with me at the moment.
>
>Gary Koepke
>Snellville, GA
I would love to see the booklet from the exhibit, if you, or anyone 
can get your hands on it.  Drop me an email.

I was there for part of the process you describe.  If Wayland got the 
idea for Madame's design from another puppet, I don't know, but I saw 
him building her (or maybe another her) in the workshop of the 
production company where we both worked.  This was back in the early 70's.

After he made her he started doing shows in small clubs around New 
York, and groups of us from work used to show up to help cheer him 
on. For me, it was mainly to observe a genius at work.  In our work 
for corporate clients our characters often ad libbed with the 
audience, but this was not a part of Wayland's earliest club act.  He 
would literally have cards on his lap and read from them as he 
went.  Our attention was generally on Madame, of course, and the guy 
just outside the spotlight was never the center of attention 
anyway.  I was, of course, paying close attention to everything.

He also produced and performed in an adult puppet show called 
"Cumquats" which was performed down at The Village Gate, as I 
recall.  I never saw it, unfortunately, but he described several of 
the bits to me.  In one, a large vagina, basically a vertical mouth 
surrounded by fringe, came on stage lip syncing to Merman's 
"Everything's Coming Up Roses."  Wayland did a great Merman 
impression.  Then an off stage voice yells, "Is that cunt still 
singing?" and a hook would come out and drag "her" off stage.

Okay.  I have to tell this story because I think of it whenever I 
think about Wayland Flowers.  We worked for a production company in 
New York that did shows for corporate clients using black light rod 
puppets, as well as a process called Aniforms which put what appeared 
to be an animated cartoon on a TV monitor, but which was actually a 
puppet like character being operated live by a hidden performer.  (It 
was invented by puppeteer Morey Bunin in the early 60's.)

Very very early in my career, maybe my second or third trade show, I 
was at Atlantic City's Convention Hall doing a show for a client 
using the live animated cartoon.  Wayland was at another exhibit 
doing the rod black light puppets.  On every one of my breaks, I'd go 
to his booth mainly to watch and try to figure out what I was 
supposed to be doing.  He was doing a little old lady character named 
Peaches, who we played not unlike Jonathan Winters' swinging little 
old lady. Now, of course, in a corporate situation, you never worked 
dirty at all, save for the occasional double entendre, assuming the 
client was okay with it.  We would ad lib with the audience, and were 
often given background material about good customers who might come 
into the booth.  Well, one of the salesmen in Wayland's booth brought 
over a customer to meet Peaches.  He introduced him by saying, 
"Peaches, I'd like you to meet one of our best customers, Mr. Dick 
Duncan."  Peaches immediately came back with, "Oh, I've done some 
dick dunkin' in my time."  I totally cracked up.  I had to walk away 
from the booth because I was laughing so hard . . .partly because it 
was so funny, and partly because is was SO wrong!

Even now, when I'm doing a show and I can tell my energy isn't in it, 
I can hear Wayland yelling "ENERGY!  ENERGY!  GET YOUR ENERGY UP!"

(Backstage shots of the animation process are on my web site . . .url below.)

-Bob Stone
www.serious-comedy.com 
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