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Pizzazz puppeteers must have no fear.
They must be willing to dance, flirt,
fling, flounce, hug and above all, perspire.
• • •
NO STRINGS ATTACHED
Puppet masters create living dolls
By Carol Rust
A
N ELVIS IMPERSONATOR was there. So were a couple
of wild deejays who have been known to dance with chairs.
Still, when 14-year-old Maudie Werlin answered the front door,
she screamed.
There in the door stood two 8-foot-tall, buxom women dressed
to the glitzy hilt, both talking at once.
They burst into the party without invitation and flounced up
to the first man they saw.
"Ooooh, honey, you're so cuuuute," said Ivana Mann, the
daughter half of the mother-and-daughter duo Anita Mann and
Ivana Mann.
"And dahlink, you have such beautiful hair," Anita said to a
woman. They moved from room to room, casting off audacious
one-liners and playing off each other. They oohed and aahed
over each of the 80 guests.
And then, something went wrong with Anita's, well, derriere.
It was hanging crooked.
"Oh, dahlink, I am so embarrassed. Come, daughter, I need your
help," she said, as the two pranced off to a back bedroom.
Moments later, Gregory Ruhe and Charles Rabhi of Puppet
Pizzazz shed the huge rumps and busts they wore as the Mann
duo and changed into giant penguin costumes.
"And, remember," one penguin said to the other, "don't poke
people in the face with your beak."
I
N THE MIDDLE of the small den is a passenger seat from Ruhe's van.
"It's the best seat in the house," he laughed.
It is the only seat in the house. Rabhi, his apprentice, sits
on the corner of a trunk. The rest of the furniture is
occupied - by monkeys, a cow in a petticoat and flowered
dress, a Beatrix Potter-looking rabbit, a king and queen, a
green dog, a snowman and snowwoman, bosomy female puppets in
glittery silver outfits, Santa and Mrs. Claus, Cleopatra,
Carmen Miranda. ... The cast of characters goes on.
"We don't want
someone to say,
`Oh, I've already
seen Puppet
Pizzazz.' We want
to bring them
fresh characters
all the time."
- Charles Ruhe
They are the creations of Ruhe and designer Marsha MacDonald,
a veteran costumer who works in one of the rooms. She's been
making puppets full time for Puppet Pizzazz for five years.
The company includes about 75 bigger-than-life, clay-faced
characters, and is always making more.
"We don't want someone to say, `Oh, I've already seen Puppet
Pizzazz,' " the 38-year-old Ruhe said. "We want to bring them
fresh characters all the time."
The puppets aren't just the marionettes and hand puppets
you've seen before. Some are 10 feet tall. All are handmade.
Ruhe describes them as priceless because the construction is
so tedious "and they begin to have a personality that you
can't buy with money."
"You get to where you talk to them," MacDonald said of the
characters.
Ruhe employs a small pool of actors to man the puppets, when
he and 32-year-old Rabhi can't cover all the gigs. "And it
can't just be any actor," Ruhe said. "We want people who see
us to say, `Wow!'
"We have to have bigger-than-life personalities. We've got to
be the life of the party.
"Some actors can't transfer their acting into the puppets," he
said. "You can see them acting behind the puppet, but not as
part of the puppet."
Pizzazz puppeteers make about $200 an hour, depending on the
gig. But they must have no fear. They must be willing to
dance, flirt, fling, flounce, hug and above all, perspire.
Those puppet outfits get hot. With many of the costumes, Ruhe
and Rabhi fasten the torsos around their waists, and their
legs become part of the costume. If they are the Mann
sisters, it means pantyhose and 5-inch heels. Their heads and
torsos are covered with black hoods in a style akin to the
Japanese puppetry called "bunraku," in which the
puppeteers are in full view of the audience. They use one hand
to operate the puppet's mouth and the other as one of the
puppet's hands.
"Even if my head wasn't covered, people would focus their
attention on the puppets," Ruhe said. "They demand
attention."
The larger-than-life puppets take up every square inch of wall
and furniture space in nearly all the rooms of the small house
in the warehouse district off Interstate 10 near downtown.
R
UHE STARTED HIS puppeteer career at age 5, putting
on puppet shows from his bedroom window to anyone who was kind
enough to watch from below. He started his acting career about
the same time, when he was on "Romper Room" for two weeks.
His dream of acting grew over the years, but his steelworker
father had other ideas. When it was time for Ruhe to go to
college, his father said he could major in anything but drama.
But then he won a full drama scholarship at West Virginia
University.
As he took courses in costume construction, lighting and
puppetry, he wondered what on earth they had to do with
acting. But one of his first acting roles was as a puppeteer.
"I was a little perturbed because I wanted to be cast as
Prince Charming, but instead played the part of a baby bird
puppet."
After graduating in 1983, Ruhe moved to Houston to become part
of the Alley Theater's Young Company, his first professional
acting experience.
"It was such a slap in the face, the reality of it," he said.
"Here were all these incredibly talented people who never knew
where they would be when the play closed."
"With puppets,
I felt this freedom.
I was out of myself
and into my
character. There's
so much freedom,
so much strength,
to see the way it
affected audiences."
- Charles Ruhe
To supplement his income, he became a waiter for Jackson and
Company Caterers. He sees that stint as a building block for
what he does today.
"The catering company taught me all about society parties - it
was a whole different world," he said. "My dad was a
steelworker in Pittsburgh. I didn't know anything about
galas."
Luisa Amaral-Smith was also in the Young Company, and she and
Ruhe formed the Children's Theater of Houston in 1984.
When they wanted to put puppets in their shows, Ruhe sat down
and made the first one, not thinking he could. More puppets
followed.
"The puppets captured our audiences," he said. "The people
paid more attention to puppets than they did the people on
stage."
Meanwhile, he trudged through waiting tables and getting small
acting parts.
In 1991, he applied for and was approved to attend the
National Puppetry Conference at the Eugene O'Neill Theater in
Waterford, Conn. It was a turning point in his professional
life.
"I walked around in such awe of the staff and participants,
surrounded by people that were of the same passion," Ruhe
said.
Midway through the week, "all of a sudden, I realized I was
their peer. I felt a part of them."
That's when puppets took over his life.
He returned, left the Children's Theater and set out on his
own. He made more puppets, ones he could wear and manipulate.
"With puppets, I felt this freedom. I was out of myself and
into my character. There's so much freedom, so much strength,
to see the way it affected audiences."
He also instituted Mr. Greg the Puppet Man, an hourlong show
he brings to schools. It's not unusual for children to stop
him and say, "Hey! Mr. Greg!"
Word about his puppets spread. He got more and more calls from
people wanting his puppets at parties.
Birthday parties. Bar mitzvahs. Auctions. Fund-raisers. Toasts
and roasts. Chic dinners.
"I thought, `Hey, maybe there's a business in this.' "
The puppets have been to Thailand, Hong Kong, India, the
governor's mansion (twice), the Museum of Fine Arts, Theater
Under The Stars and the Houston Grand Opera, to name a few.
And they "crash" parties constantly.
Three years ago, Ruhe was invited to become part of Very
Special Arts India, a three-month foreign tour in which he
worked with teachers to show them his art so they could take
it to the classroom. In Bangkok, a French actor kept hanging
around, fascinated. Through a translator, he told Ruhe he
wanted to learn his art.
The Frenchman is now Ivana Mann, among many other characters.
Rabhi is especially talented in flirting in costume, never
gets embarrassed asking for a size 11 high heel at the
Salvation Army and loves to go to the Wig Mart in costume,
shopping for more hair. He is also teaching French to his
business partner, because Ruhe's ultimate dream is to tour
Europe with his entourage.
Rabhi is also very polite. When moving about in the house, he
stepped on a puppet's dress.
"Oh, excuse me, dear" he said.
He wasn't entirely comfortable acting himself - "the naked
self on stage was difficult for me." He decided if he were
going to continue in the theatrical world, he would have to
create his own niche.
B
ACK AT THE PARTY, the giant puppets left a laughing
bunch of people in their wake. Some followed them from room to
room, just to see what they would say or do next.
Houston investor Chip Cureton, earlier accosted by the
flamboyant Anita Mann, said, "I think they're fantastic - they
take you by surprise. I was totally blown away.
"They ought to be doing more parties on a regular basis.
They're so unique."
Houston attorney David Childress said he'd never seen anything
like them. "They're unique and hilarious," he said.
After their hourlong gig was up, Ruhe and Rabhi trudged out a
back entrance in street clothes, dragging huge sacks filled
with their costumes. Rabhi complained, "Those high heels are
killing me. We've got to go back to Salvation Army and get
some more shoes."
"That reminds me," Ruhe said, "we've got to figure out what to
do about the cracks in the alien hands before (the next) gig.
We can't show up with those cracks in our hands."
The two walked along until they got to the van, and Ruhe
jingled the van keys. Suddenly he turned to Rabhi and said,
"Did you get your other arm?"