by Kirby Laney, posted 28 March 2018
The Moisture Festival producers work hard to bring new acts to the vaudeville showcase every year, but they also invite back crowd favorites – and sometimes we get lucky and they return. Rubbery Fish, also known as Couple 69, fit into this latter category.
PeeWee and Jo are ‘Barry’ and ‘Yvonne’, the outrageous couple who attempt to perform the Paso Doble (olé!) during their act at Moisture Festival. Dressed in outrageous pink & green costumes, and covered in a glittery sheen that, after all these years, oozes from their pores, the two squabble, wrestle and engage the audience in their drama, every time they take the stage.
This is only one act performed by Rubbery Fish. The performers brought Couple 69 to Fremont from Brighton, England, but they actually have several other acts in their repertoire – just none as well suited for the MF stage. ‘Barry’ & ‘Yvonne’ perform roughly the same ‘dance’ each time they perform, but their banter, and audience interaction, changes from show to show – where most of their acts are all about the banter, with no act.
According to Jo and PeeWee, the banter is standard operating procedure for the duo, who both perform a lot of street theater. “We develop things,” Jo explained, trying out new jokes and comments each time they put themselves out there. Each time they gauge reactions, and work out if they want to modify, keep it as is, or move on to a new bit or gag.
‘Roaming Around’
“Our other acts are for roaming around,” PeeWee explained. The two do a lot of street theater circus shows. They get hired for Walk-About acts, and ‘Barry’ & ‘Yvonne’ are one of the crowd interactive acts they provide for street animation. “We interfere,” Jo explained.
“We are enabling people to release themselves from their hum-drum lives,” PeeWee observed, “We take them away.” Moisture Festival definitely provides an escape, into magic and mayhem, and Rubbery Fish also give that escape on sidewalks, engaging people who stumble across the lost, hopeless wanna-be ballroom dancers ‘Couple 69’. “It’s quite subversive,” Jo said, “but not in an ugly way.”
They “undermine reality,” Jo explained. One of the acts they play, sometimes with other performers, takes an iconic sight in England – the St. John Ambulance. The volunteer organization provides first aid and life-saving education. Wearing old, modified St. John uniforms, PeeWee and Jo appear as ‘St. Joan Ambulance.’ PeeWee has on a neck brace and assorted ‘plasters’ (Band-Aids) while Jo, “gets in full pole dance” mode, she explained. Some passers-by assume they are with St. John until, “it slowly dawns on them,” PeeWee explained, that this couple of accident-prone buffoons aren’t the real thing. “Half will know what is going on and half will be working it out,” he said, as the couple do their routine, talking, joking and engaging the crowd in the gag. “It’s joyous,” he exclaimed.
As to the audience, Rubbery Fish don’t choose victims; rather they look for people who want to play. “We are always our own victims,” Jo explained. They both have years of experience in how to read an audience, and find people who want to be taken out of themselves (or, at MF, out of their seats) to participate. “I’ve been doing it for years,” PeeWee said, “it’s like a sixth sense.” Finding the person who might want to play takes reading body language, but it is more, he explained, “It’s like a poker tell. It’s not necessarily a physical thing.”
While they talk and play with members of the audience, they don’t push – or pull – people into the act. “We allow them to make their own decisions,” PeeWee said, “People have had long conversations with us,” in their characters as ‘St. Joan Ambulance’ or ‘Couple 69’. “We are happy to be real for them,” Jo acknowledged.
About Possibilities
“Every once in a while we touch someone’s life,” PeeWee said of their performances, “we will take the time.” For both performers, this ability to bring joy and play to a stranger is a strong motivating force. “We do a show where we are two cats that live in trash cans,” PeeWee explained. “We wear huge, beautiful masks,” Jo added. At one performance, a15-year-old, with Asperger’s Syndrome, approached them and started to pet them. After the young man had moved away, the parent talked to the pair, near tears, about how their son had never done that before in his life.
“It’s about possibility,” Jo said about their performances, “about opening doors.” The two look for responses, and reactions, to Couple 69, or one of the other characters in their repertoire, and gauge accordingly, but they aren’t perfect. At a cabaret, PeeWee tried to joke with a man who sat next to the stage, in the lights, but wouldn’t engage no matter what PeeWee tried. In the end, PeeWee realized that he’d accepted some kind of challenge to get this guy to have fun – and the guy was just as determined not to.
“A little of entertainment is about feeding the entertainer’s ego,” PeeWee acknowledged, but that isn’t the intent, or the goal, of Rubbery Fish. As ‘Couple 69’, the two performers degrade, embarrass and make fools of themselves. “It isn’t our ambition to embarrass or humiliate,” the audience, Jo explained, “When I was a kid, I went to a Panto and got pulled up on stage.” The younger Jo hated the experience, and the humiliation she felt. “I’m aware that some people don’t want the attention.”
‘Up For It’
Rubbery Fish returns to Moisture Festival when they can, when they don’t have a paying gig to keep them away. They took part in the fourth Moisture, and then returned two years ago, in 2016. For all MF performers, paying gigs take precedence as the Festival can only give a small share from ticket sales. However, like most MF performers, Jo and PeeWee are glad to take part in the vaudeville showcase whenever the opportunity does arise.
For Couple 69, part of the appeal of Moisture Festival is its audiences, who seem to welcome the craziness. “I’d say they are up for it,” PeeWee observed. Even those who shy away from becoming part of the madness of ‘Barry’ & ‘Yvonne’, still seem to appreciate the effort the pair put out on the stage.
Another part of what attracted these seasoned professionals to Moisture is the chance to work with others in their field. “It feels really community,” Jo explained, “like an amateur dramatic, but it’s a really quality show.” For performers who put themselves out into the regular world, it’s nice to mix with others who understand what they are trying to do. “People get to meet at shows,” Jo said, “it brings people together.” She and PeeWee check-in with friends from previous shows, and see acts they’ve never encountered before – and may never again. “It brings people together,” she observed about Moisture, “in a friendly place.”
“The work that we do is about heart,” Jo explained, “its about adventure.” They don’t perform because of the money. “It’s terrible money,” she acknowledged, “it’s about soul.” Instead, they do it for the people – and for the opportunities to travel. On this trek to the Pacific Northwest, they’ve had time to look around and see beautiful mountains, massive coffees and giant burritos!
Moisture Festival welcomes over 100 performers every year to its vaudeville showcase – some returning favorites, and some entirely new talents. Find out more about Rubbery Fish, and the other performers, on the Moisture Festival.org website – or by stopping by for a show! Tickets still remain available for select shows. Find out more on StrangerTickets.com
See you there!
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©2018 Kirby S. Laney. This column is protected by intellectual property laws, including U.S. copyright laws. Reproduction, adaptation or distribution without permission is prohibited.