Ventriloquist Carla Rhodes manipulates pop culture
By Tamara Ikenberg •
[email protected] June 28, 2009
http://www.courier-journal.com/article/20090628/SCENE05/906280304Keith Richards is hanging from the chandelier, and Mick Jagger is throwing money everywhere in a tiny New York apartment. Enter their roommate: Carla Rhodes, a petite woman with wild, red curly hair. She scolds them for their lack of control — and for making her computer freeze on the American Association of Retired Persons Web site.
It's a scene from the new Web show "Positively 5th Street," starring Rhodes, 27, a rising star and rock 'n' roll ventriloquist, along with two very convincing Mick and Keith puppets.
The Charlestown, Ind., native who wowed Louisville crowds as a teenager was recently named one of New York magazine's 10 comics to watch in 2009. With a full schedule of gigs, Rhodes races around New York's alternative comedy scene toting suspicious-looking suitcases holding Mick, Keith and her other character, Cecil, a deranged 1920s chauvinist.
Rhodes may be young, but she's been perfecting her technique for 19 years. The self-taught artist's first performance was at Jonathan Jennings Elementary School in Charlestown. By 15, she was cracking up crowds at Comedy Caravan. And now she's the puppet-toting toast of New York.
"I think it's cool to manipulate pop culture through puppets and I love rock 'n' roll," said Rhodes, calling from the patio of her Brooklyn, N.Y., apartment. She's enjoying some time alone: "The puppets are probably still sleeping from their long night," she quipped. Her parrot, Colonel Mustard, who surprisingly can't muster a single intelligible word, perches nearby. "It's just like my Keith Richards puppet," she joked. "It just mumbles."
Look who's talking
Ventriloquism may seem like a risky, retro niche for an edgy, young comic, but it just might be on the rise again. There's Comedy Central star Jeff Dunham and his dummy, Peanut, as well as ventriloquist Terry Fator, who won the second season of "America's Got Talent."
Nevertheless, when Shayni Rae and her friends witnessed Rhodes' act in New York, they were left speechless. "We were just like, 'Who is this girl?'" said Rae, who hosts a popular weekly variety show at the National Underground, a Lower East Side bar owned by the eclectic singer Gavin DeGraw. She became one of the first New York promoters to book Rhodes.
"The puppetry aspect is one part, the ventriloquism part is another, and then there's being able to be funny and be a comedian without being cheesy," Rae marveled. "It's a pretty difficult thing. I certainly wouldn't try it."
Perhaps it helps that Rhodes isn't on stage alone, but with her wild characters.
She was drawn to her main dummy, Cecil, about five years ago, at the Vent Haven Ventriloquism Convention in Fort Mitchell, Ky.
In a ventriloquist dealer's showroom, "I saw Cecil's hand sticking out from underneath a table. The character came to me because up close he's very scary and his face is all cracked. His cheeks are red, and it looks like he is permanently drunk."
She imbued Cecil with some unique qualities: He always has licorice in his pocket, he harbors an Eleanor Roosevelt fetish, and he has a psycho-killer streak. Cecil's voice is slightly British, and sometimes it drops to a menacing whisper, like an insane voice in your head, as he threatens to kill the audience or rants about women.
"The whole thing is he's been in a suitcase since the '20s, and his character is a statement on how bad men were back then," she said. "He criticizes the fact that I have a job and wear pants. He's just like this weird guy from another time who has no clue about what's going on now — and doesn't like what's going on now."
While Cecil comes completely from Rhodes' vivid imagination, the blokes behind her other puppet partners have honed their hedonistic images in front of the world for half a century. Mumbly Keith and haughty Mick have been with Rhodes since her sophomore year in high school, when "I got hit with the classic rock 'n' roll bug," she said.
Her Stones puppets have even caught the attention of the genuine articles. Rhodes has met them several times, and was once summoned backstage by Jagger for a personal puppet performance right before a Rolling Stones show in Nashville, Tenn.
"It was very surreal; it was just off the cuff," she said. "They were super-cool. I've got a picture of Keith with the Keith puppet, and I've got a picture of me kissing Mick Jagger."
Careful with your kid's hobby!
In the early stages of her career, which started at 8, Rhodes had a whole different puppet gallery. Fred The Duck was her main sidekick when, at 13, she used to entertain at a local magic shop.
"He was based on Groucho Marx," Rhodes said. "His big crowd pleaser was laying an egg — and his leg would fall off instead."
How exactly does a young girl get interested in ventriloquism? At the age of 8, armed with some library books and an uncommon commitment, Rhodes began educating herself.
"I thought it was a good hobby at the time," said her father, Stephen Rhodes, who resides in Charlestown. Rhodes' mother, Ellen Hobbs, lives in Louisville. "That's all she ever wanted to do. I figured she'd continue to do it. We'd take her to the ventriloquism convention in Florence every year and even Las Vegas a couple years. She wore us out."
Rhodes practiced and performed all through school. She took inspiration from Shari Lewis and Lamb Chop, the children's puppeteer and '60s TV mainstay, and even struck up a correspondence with Lewis. Lewis' daughter, Mallory, took over Lamb Chop after her mother died in 1998 and has remained good friends with Rhodes.
"When I inherited Lamb Chop, I inherited Carla," said Mallory Lewis, "and I consider myself very lucky."
Rhodes attended college at Middle Tennessee State University, where she was the only student in her graduating class who also performed as a ventriloquist in New York over vacations. She was so eager to head to the city that she skipped her graduation ceremony to pack.
"I had wanted to live in New York since I was 12 years old or something," she says. "It was all I thought about, and it was all I wanted to do."
But she credits her hometown for influencing her fierce devotion to ventriloquism.
"It really gave me lots and lots of time to think and to figure things out, because I was really far out in the country," she said. "We couldn't even get cable TV or anything. There was lots of time to dream and use your imagination."
Where will that imagination lead her next? She's busy shopping her "Positively 5th Street" pilot to different buyers. In the meantime, Carla, Keith, Mick and Cecil are doing just fine. Rhodes is even thinking about allowing Cecil to formally meet Keith and Mick.
"I haven't experimented with that yet," she says. "I'm sure they party together when I'm not home."
Reporter Tamara Ikenberg can be reached at (502) 582-4174.
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