People’s lives, careers and relationships took some strange twists and turns during the Covid pandemic. But few were as specific as Sophie Becker’s. She hooked up with a dummy. I’m not referring to a questionable roommate or romantic partner. But an actual wooden dummy. The results of their friendship were on display last Saturday when they performed together at Art Omi, an arts center in Ghent, NY.
“I started doing it during Covid,” Sophie told me a few days after her show referring to ventriloquism. “I’m an actor. I couldn’t go onstage. I could still perform scenes, but my side partner was me. It could work logistically.”
She’s selling herself short. Her partner, with a mind of his own, or at least a decent amount of attitude, is Jerry Mahoney, Sophie’s ventriloquist dummy. I’m of an age when ventriloquists were a staple of night time variety shows, such as Ed Sullivan’s. There was Edgar Bergen with his sidekick Charlie McCarthy. Señor Wences and his puppet Johnny. And Paul Winchell and his better half, the original Jerry Mahoney.
As a kid I was always intrigued by the performers’ ability to voice their dummies without moving their lips, or moving their lips just a little bit. But the shtick quickly wore thin for me. Maybe with the exception of Señor Wences. I don’t know whether it was the Spanish accent or because he simultaneously spun plates but, somehow, the comedian and Johnny held my attention.
It might not be entirely fair to say that yesteryear’s ventriloquists fit a mold. But if they did Sophie Becker smashes it. She’s a tall, commanding stone-faced young woman as well as a brilliant straight man, or rather straight woman, but decidedly different than the guys were. They were going for laughs. She seems to be doing everything in her power to be taken seriously. “It’s not comedy,” she tried to convince me. “The dummy is such a weird, uncanny figure already. Do I even need comedy that badly?”
Sophie told me that she went line dancing shortly before lockdown where she met a man who told her he had a Jerry Mahoney dummy. I don’t know what’s stranger — line dancing or owning an idle ventriloquist dummy — but they arranged to meet in Tompkins Square Park on the Lower East Side where Jerry’s owner taught Sophie how to operate it. “Everyone was stopping to see,” she remembered. “It was very exciting.”
The pandemic gave her lots of time to practice in the privacy of her apartment. She described her professional instruction as “Youtube Academy.” As she got better she started performing at venue’s like MOMA’s PS 21 and the Rockaway Film Festival. She’s also graced the cover of Artillery, an L.A. contemporary arts magazine. The Art Omi show, written by artist and writer Henry Gunderson, was billed as “Jerry Mahoney Success Seminar: Find What Animates you.” It included charts.
I’m not sure one could say that the show was always meant to be. But Gunderson was into dummies way before he met Sophie. He employed them as an occasional motif in his paintings. “When he heard I was a ventriloquist his eyes lighted up,” she said.
The show’s conceit, not that it needed one, is that as a “top entertainment industry insider” Jerry’s insights could help put the rest of us on the map, maybe even turn us into celebrities like him. As his devoted assistant Sophie was there to help. “Are any of you not where you want to be?” Sophie asked the crowd by way of introducing the dummy. “Do you feel like you’re on an endless treadmill going nowhere? Or maybe you were fed a false dream of success only to find yourself in a trap of material excess and despair asking yourself where it all went wrong.”
She instructed everyone to take a deep centering breath and then, doing a serviceable Ed Sullivan imitation, asked us to please welcome THE ONE AND ONLY! JEEEERRRYYY MAAAHONEEEYY!”
Jerry quieted the crowd in that eerie, focused way dummies have, then solemnly explained that he couldn’t so much as comb his hair without help. “But Jerry,” Sophie interrupted earnestly, “Tell them how you were able to accomplish so much without a brain?”
“It’s simple, “ Jerry said. “I found what animates me.”
There are still a few kinks to be worked out. Art Omi marked the success seminar’s debut. Sophie had a few issues with her microphone headset. And I think there’s room for her relationship with Jerry to grow. A little more good natured ribbing wouldn’t hurt.
Her immediate goal is to share a stage with Jerry at the Marriott Marquis hotel in Manhattan. Why the Marriott Marquis? “It’s a traditional success seminar space but it’s on Broadway,” she explained.
She’s apparently done her research. “The Marquis also has a spinning restaurant on top,” she told me.
But make no mistake, Sophie’s relationship with Jerry is entirely professional. They don’t seem to spend a lot of time together when they’re not practicing or performing. At home Jerry lives in a suitcase. “He’s a closet suitcase kid,” she deadpanned.
Ralph Gardner, Jr. is a journalist who divides his time between New York City and Columbia County. More of his work can be found be found on Substack.
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