Writer: Lachlan Werner
Ventriloquism as you’ve never seen it before, Lachlan Werner brings us not only masterful puppetry in his Voices of Evil, but also off-beat comedy, satanic revelry, and couple of musical numbers in his lacy underwear for good measure.
Werner steps trepidatiously onto stage, dressed as a white-faced choir boy and holding aloft his right-hand gal, Brew the Witch. She commands him around the venue (“walk slower!”) as she interacts with the audience and Werner stays silent – from the start it is clear that Brew takes centre stage. This is not a show of a ventriloquist controlling a puppet, this is a puppet controlling her ventriloquist.
Brew is charismatic, loud, and unfiltered. She’s an unusual and excellent character that Werner plays perfectly to match his own timid persona. His performance is modest but masterful. He is clearly a charismatic performer but lets Brew take the credit for most of it, taking the hit of her many mocking jokes like a champ.
The tone, for the most part, is light as Brew directs us through the necessary stages of her unspecified “Ritual”. It’s a fun, camp version of Satanism that the audience is very much drawn into. There are ocassional hints of something a little darker showing through and, without going into too much detail that would spoil the show, it turns out that Brew may have bitten off more than she can chew. The demonic force we have semi-accidentally summoned makes swift work of removing Brew from the stage, and the clothes from his human vessel (the unfortunate Werner).
Without Brew, the remaining portion of the show does feel a little deflated. While we are still treated to some excellent physical humour and demonic debauchery, we have lost our leading lady. Werner steps boldly into her shoes, the previously timid choirboy suddenly having a seemingly epiphanic change of character to fill the empty space on stage. However, the puppet-sized shoes don’t quite fit. The character comedy staple of seeing a performer parade around in their pants certainly is still an audience-pleaser, but it’s perhaps a shame that this is what we are left with, rather than the unique and witty relationship between puppet and puppeteer that makes most of the show such a joy.
A unique spectacle from a very clever performer. Lachlan Werner is one to watch.
Reviewed on 26 May 2023
