Beaming wickedly and clasping a collection of serving spoons in each hand, the 63-year-old Mr. Spoons joyously plays himself--lightly rolling the spoons up and down his sequined and rhinestoned kelly-green suit, further adorned in small dangling spoons. His teeth, fingernails, and forehead come in for some spoon-tapping too. It's a virtuoso performance of choreographed spoon-playing and tacky charm. In the background, ragtime music emerges from a cassette deck on a dolly that Mr. Spoons (a.k.a. Joseph Jones) has wheeled onto the stage at The Duplex, a cabaret off Sheridan Square in Greenwich Village.
Without apology, the act is marvelously marginal, hokey, dated--and at the same time uncannily contemporary.
On that same one-night Duplex bill, "American Vaudeville Theatre," a 36-year-old comic magician named Mark Mitton cuts off his tongue--slipping in and out of his mouth, it was getting in the way of his act--and continues his sleight-of-hand rope and ring tricks. And he talks to his audience, emitting the strangest squeaks, guttural noises and, well, half-tongue gobbledegook sounds anyone has ever heard anywhere. It is off the wall and side-splittingly funny. Later, Mitton, evoking the goofy blandness of a Bob Newhart in the Twilight Zone, staples his tongue back on.
Scheduled for an extended run at the Duplex later this spring, "American Vaudeville Theatre" is only one of many variety act shows on the scene. It brings together an unexpected series of acts that partake of current stand-up comedy, old turn-of-the-century vaudeville, and performance art in a Mel Brooks universe. In some of the acts, all of those elements run concurrently.
"This new vaudeville represents a marriage of high and low culture, old and young, left and right, educated and uneducated tastes," says Travis Stewart, a.k.a. Trav S.D. (get it?), "American Vaudeville Theatre" 's emcee and producer. "As emcee, I'm a hybrid: I've combined the dashing clean-cut qualities of Bob Hope with some surreal elements, i.e., the painted glasses--although Bobby Clark, a comic who goes all the way back, originated that idea.
"However, the music I play on the guitar is right out of rock culture. It's a post-punk esthetic," he chortles. "That's a fancy way of saying, 'I've had no training and I rarely practice.' Vaudeville died. What we're doing is reinventing the wheel, creating a performance niche that will bridge the past and the future and represent a new theatre!"
SUB: Trend-Spotting
Sidney Myer, owner of Don't Tell Mama, a hot nightspot on West 46th Street, sees a trend here too, and suspects it has the potential to draw a broad-based audience: "Skill is skill and there's always a market for it. Variety acts died largely because TV variety shows disappeared. And then variety became identified with old folks and children. It was considered corny. What's new--what's happening now--is that traditional variety acts are rediscovered in re-invented packaging.
"Think about last year's 'Pomp, Duck and Circumstance,' the German circus-like extravaganza. For $150 you got a gourmet meal, trapeze acts overhead, and waiters standing on top of each other balancing plates. The whole scene was right out of a Marx Brothers movie. And it was phenomenal!"
The Downtown world is getting into the act as well. Surf Reality, the Luna Lounge, Nada, and Collective Unconscious have all presented, at one time or another and in various incarnations, vaudeville-type shows--or perhaps, more precisely, acts that merge performance art and a side-show sensibility, all filtered through a comic vision.
"If Charlie Chaplin or Buster Keaton or many of the original vaudevillians were alive today they'd be performance artists," asserts Robert Prichard, co-curator at Surf Reality, a small second-story theatre space on Allen Street where we recently caught "Surf Vaudeville."
Although the piece, says Prichard, was the most clearly defined vaudeville evening the theatre has produced, variety acts have become Surf Reality staples over the last few years. These include "Children of Pigol," "The Witching Hour" (all-female vaudeville), and "Serious Pratt Falls."
Like "American Vaudeville Theatre," "Surf Vaudeville" combines a series of acts that reflect a composite of cultural sensibilities and performance styles.
Consider Register and Gans, a frenetic duo in tuxedos and sneakers, snarling at each other--shades of Abbot and Costello--while, like circus barkers, commanding the audience to be free and spontaneous. It's desperate gibberish. Their style is 1940s, their reference points hip.
And then there's "The Happy Chef," the most striking act of the evening. It stars Yang Ziao Di, a life-long member of the Nanjing Acrobats, a Chinese troupe with an international reputation. Yang's skill--including balancing three eggs on top of a chopstick on top of his nose--is nothing short of mind-boggling. (What's more, at the end, he shows us the eggs are raw.) There's a touch of zaniness throughout as Yang spins plates, juggles knives, and slices fruit mid-air. It's a madcap send-up of American TV chefs. "I've lived in the United States since 1993 and one of the reasons I emigrated was to study American performance styles," says Yang, speaking through an interpreter. "In China, performance is serious. Here, there is more room for comedy and," he chuckles, "mistakes. American audiences love you. They laugh, they applaud, they cheer."
Yang's act has its roots in a 2,000-year-old tradition. "Every city in China has an acrobatic team. It is a highly respected art form and you start training at an early age. You do not perform until you've achieved a solid foundation. And you master one level before you move on to the next."
Prichard says: "Yang is world-class. His footwork is like Kung-Fu and the innovations and complexity of his acrobatics " the sentence is left unfinished. "Hipness factors change, but someone like Yang will always have an audience, especially among Generation X."
SUB: Under the Big Top
That Uptown-Downtown marriage has its origins in the artistic fringe but embodies Broadway production values--that unmistakably slick look and execution.
On Broadway the new vaudevillian trailblazers include such stars as Bill Irwin and David Shiner, Penn & Teller, and The Flying Karamazov Brothers. Circuses have always employed variety acts, perhaps none so Uptown-Downtown as those seen at the Big Apple Circus over the last few years. In its most recent production, "The Medicine Show," there are Anatoli and Liubov Sudarchikov, two old-line sleight-of-hand costume-changers, who with a fast twirl and literally in the blink of an eye are abruptly clothed in new outfits. On the same bill, a new vaudevillian, Johnny Peers, and his Muttville Comics--a collection of dogs--clown and frolic and perform tricks, most of which fail dismally. With each splendid, perfectly planned miss, the jollily deranged Johnny and his equally demented partner, Peggy O'Neill, grow more delighted.
In 1988's "The Big Apple Circus Meets the Monkey King" (starring the aforementioned Yang and his astonishing Nanjing acrobats), there were Roby Gasser and his two performing sea lions--a Las Vegas Nightclub show-stealer if ever there was one. The diminutive Gasser, who resembles a lounge singer in his snug-fitting sequined satin jump suit, plays straight man to his two sea lions (Adolph and Taxi), who roll over dead, shimmy across the ring on their stomachs, and bang their flippers together like applauding palms. They balance various objects on their noses--including Gasser, who, hoisted up by the seat of his pants, conveys an expression of amusement, embarrassment, and surprise. The three-way relationship is oddly kinky.
Las Vegas, a bastion of old-line variety acts--some coarse, some wholesome, all slick--is shifting gears a little too. It's now home to, among others, the media pundit-praised Cirque du Soleil that blends serious esthetic goals with audience-pleasing spectacle.
At Cirque, there's always, first and foremost, show biz--amazing acts, eye-popping costumes, and glitzy special effects. But there's also the high-brow conceptual art. Their clowns emerge right out of a Beckettian imagination.
The Vegas clubs also reflect a cultural change, says Billy Harris, a comic magician who plays the hotels there. "For starters there are more variety acts going on in the Vegas clubs than ever before. Audiences are simply saturated with stand-up comics. All they have to do is turn on their TVs to see Rosie O'Donnell, Roseanne, or Seinfeld. When they come to the clubs, they want to see something else, something new." Harris' comic calling card is his physical persona and temperament--a Buddy Hackett-Harpo Marx cross breed. Coincidentally, he himself is a descendant of original vaudevillian George Jessel.
SUB: Sight Gags
The visual element has always been central in vaudeville--from kooky made-up instruments to funny hats and incongruous costumes. Mr. Spoons' spoon-covered costume is peerless and wonderfully devoid of elbow-nudging irony. New vaudevillian Peter Daniel, a plate-spinning, accordion- playing clown, is visually striking too, although his look is more self-consciously absurdist. Sporting a helmet on his head and a tambourine on his foot, he balances objects on his nose and regales the crowd with his musicianship, his putty-like face expressing fatuous self-satisfaction.
The Los Angeles-based Chuck Harris (no relation to Bill), a variety arts manager and producer, believes that the visual elements--the plain old-fashioned sight gags--are more in vogue today than ever. It's no accident, he suggests, that Jim Carrey, a Jerry Lewis comic heir, is so hot.
"In part the sight gags have become the performer's response to political-correctness issues," Harris says. "Verbal comedy can step on toes in a way that physical comedy doesn't. You can't get up on stage and talk about old folk losing their teeth. But you can darken your teeth, suggesting toothlessness, and get up on a stage. Everyone will howl."
Perhaps this is a tad mean-spirited and underhanded, but visually driven acts talk to a broad-based audience on many levels. Still, Harris insists, to find a market today, these new acts have to be "whacked out, taken to the max, and one of a kind!"
Dubbed "Mr. Variety" by industry insiders, Harris keeps an eye out for unusual talent and is seeking videotapes from those wanting representation. (He can be reached at Visual Arts Group, 323 So. Orange Dr., Los Angeles, CA 90036; 213-933-9161.) Among other anomalous acts, he currently represents Mr. Washing Machine and Mr. Balloon Man, both of whom we recently caught on the syndicated "Gordon Elliott" show.
Mr. Washing Machine's shtick is rolling himself up into a washing machine, feet and hands manacled. Spinning around as water pours in, he frees himself and within moments emerges, unfettered and triumphant; Gordon Elliott is clearly relieved. Standing alongside the washing machine throughout, Elliott attempts lamely to conceal his fear, gussying it up as happy amazement.
On the same show, but in a somewhat gentler vein, Mr. Balloon Man (a.k.a. Hillel Gitter) does his bit. A self-described "clowntomime," the small, wiry Argentinean-Israeli blows up a giant balloon, six feet tall, five feet wide. Opening its mouth, he slips into it head first, glides around the stage, and finally discharges himself with graceful fluidity, the balloon remaining intact.
Mr. Balloon Man performed this bit in "Victor/Victoria" on tour. The setup: While tumbling around in the balloon--he is auditioning for the club owner--Julie Andrews enters and sings, her high note busting the balloon.
Says Harris: "This is the first time an act quite like this has appeared on a Broadway stage. I had to convince [producers] Blake Edwards and Tony Adams that this was a better idea than the dog act they originally had. After all, a dog can poop on a stage at any moment and there's nothing you can do about it."
A trained actor, mime and clown, Mr. Balloon Man recalls having "a life-long obsession with bubbles and balloons. As far back as I can remember, what I really wanted to do was get into a balloon. This is not for people who suffer from claustrophobia. And there's always the danger that if the air disappears from the balloon and you're inside, you'll suffocate."
Besides playing the club circuit--he is currently at Resorts Casino in Atlantic City--Mr. Balloon Man's biggest marketplace is the TV talk show. Indeed, a fair number of those we interviewed suggest that TV may well be the major venue for variety acts down the road. But then talk shows--from Mike Douglas to Johnny Carson to David Letterman--have traditionally played host to variety acts.
This next time around, however, there'll be a darker '90s twist, suggests Todd Robbins, a fire-, sword-, and glass-eater. He's talking about a burgeoning audience for variety acts on daytime talk shows, ˆ la Geraldo, Gordon Eliottt, and Oprah.
Like the old side show, current daytime talk shows appeal to prurient tastes, says Robbins. These shows have become our latest confessionals, broadcast to millions of voyeurs. There's an audience out there, ready to gawk, eager for humiliation and even blood.
SUB: Lions and Tigers and Spoons, Oh My!
There are three types of vaudevillians on the scene today: First, the polished mainstream performers like Siegfried and Roy, Doug Henning, and, especially, the high-tech, laid-back David Copperfield, whose recent Broadway show, "David Copperfield--Dreams and Nightmares" was a box-office record-breaker.
Then there are the throwbacks, skilled showmen like Mr. Spoons and, most pointedly, the remarkable Yang, both emerging from another place and time and remaining largely unchanged. Little reinvention is taking place here and audiences are not seeing the performers in a new light. They're discovering them.
At the opposite end of the spectrum are the brand-new vaudevillians on the scene, the younger men (and to a far lesser extent, women) who are repackaging traditional vaudevillian elements. Most of these new vaudevillians make their livings on the party and corporate circuit. Many have formal university theatre training and/or have studied privately with master clowns. A fair number have come up the ranks through the circus and/or street theatre scene, working in the Pickle Family or San Francisco Mime Troupe vein. These are educated and articulate performers, keenly aware of cultural influences, theatrical trends, and the precise way they'd like their work to resonate.
Peter Daniel says he only wishes he could capture "Joseph Grimaldi's poignancy and hilarious antics." Grimaldi was an 18th-century clown genius. In his final performance he sat on the stage, eating a plate of oysters, picking each one up and apologizing before ingesting it. By all accounts this was very funny and moving.
"Most vaudeville," Daniel continues, "has a show-and-tell aspect, and it's hollow. My goal is to connect with the audience, have a shared experience, and the stuff I do is important as a vehicle to that end."
Says Andrea Grayson, president of A Fine Mess, a Charlotte, Vt.-based production company that represents and produces variety artists, "Many of the new vaudevillians are fine actors who have created characters and are as interested in changing audience perception as they are in tumbling, juggling, cycling, and clowning."
Robbins--he's the glass-, sword-, and fire-eater--talks about the evolving attitudes towards sideshows, hitherto those staples of circuses, carnivals, and country fairs. He is in tune with the politics of his potentially grisly act.
"Sideshows specializing in bearded ladies and Siamese twins began to dry up for a number of reasons, mostly because liberals in the '50s and '60s saw freaks"--Robbins emphasizes the word--"as objects of exploitation, and they were determined to stop it. In fact, freaks were the royalty of the sideshow; they truly belonged and very few were exploited. No, I do not think they were victims.
"But thanks to the efforts of these educated people, freaks lost their jobs and were put into institutions. Today, there are virtually no sideshows left, short of Ward Hall's, which performs in the New Jersey Meadowlands each July 4th, and Coney Island's Sideshows by the Sea Shore, where I work from Memorial Day through Labor Day. I do 10 to 12 shows a day and eat 50 light bulbs a week. These are real bulbs," he insists. "The skill is based on principles of physics and anatomy that few people know."
(Ed. Note: Coney Island's artistic director, Dick D. Zigun, adds two more to the list--the Jim Rose Circus Sideshow in Seattle and California's Bobby Reynolds sideshow.)
Robbins, an unabashed-sideshow advocate, was turned on to magic acts and carnival life at an early age. He is perhaps among the more unusual of the new vaudevillians. After majoring in theatre at Cal State ("Talk about a worthless degree!"), he created his own magic act. Quoting Houdini, he observes, " 'A magician is only an actor playing the part of a magician."'
An easygoing performer in a satin suit, Robbins says his goal is to demystify what he's doing and still remain respectful. "I joke about it and explain each step. Years ago, glass-eaters would go, 'Ouch, ouch, ouch.' And fire-eaters would go, 'Hot, hot, hot.' I go, 'Hey, this is cool.' Yet I'm not mocking it." So, who comes to these performances?
"At Coney Island, it's a mixed bag. There are lots of working-class people, some of whom I suspect want to see real blood. But there are also a fair number of hipsters in the audience--people from the East Village, all dressed in black."
Robbins is currently writing a play, a starring vehicle for himself, featuring his unusual talents. He hopes his production, like "Ricky Jay and his 52 Assistants," a comic magic show, will find an audience Off-Broadway. "The challenge will be to get people involved without grossing them out." A Downtown touch: The piece will also present Jenny Miller, a bearded performance artist machete-juggler.
* * *
The future of variety acts is, of course, up for grabs. Nobody knows how they'll evolve, although there are hopes aplenty.
"There will be a killer-vaudeville show on Broadway or Off-Broadway," predicts Grayson. "It will be long-running, recognizable, and serve as an anchor. Suddenly there will be spin-offs and regional interest. The hit show will do for variety acts what Savion Glover has done for tap dance."
Mr. Spoons, on the other hand, would not like to see vaudeville on Broadway. "Suddenly, the professionals--the directors, the designers, the producers--would get into the act. And the true spirit of vaudeville and that special spontaneity between performer and audience would go right out the window. What I'd really like is the return of TV shows like "Real People" or even "Ted Mack's Amateur Hour." Contrary to popular opinion, he says, "Most of the performers on those shows were not a