Jay Johnson is still finding a voice for show

CAMBRIDGE -- Jay Johnson wants people to see ventriloquism the way he does: as an art form, not a party trick. And there are moments in ``Jay Johnson: The Two and Only!," the 95-minute show he has written for himself and a few of his wooden friends, when the magic he works does feel more like art than craft. There are also a few too many moments when the show feels, you should excuse the expression, too talky.

Much of what Johnson has to say (or has his companions say) is fascinating. He explores the history of ventriloquism, from its roots in necromancy through Edgar Bergen, with stops at the Oracle of Delphi and the Wizard of Oz. Cheerful and preternaturally normal-looking, Johnson seems like an affable professor as he walks us through. Then, just as it starts feeling too much like a history lecture, it turns into a stand-up routine. Then back to history, a personal reminiscence, a technical aside, or maybe a four-letter word.

There's some great material here, simply but handsomely staged at Zero Arrow Theatre in a pre-Broadway run. Johnson has some profound things to say about why we want to hear voices where there are none, and he can also be very funny (though he should lose a dumb, if-it-made-sense-it-would-be-offensive ``homo sapien" line). And there's no mistaking his gift for making us believe that the voices we hear onstage (to say nothing of the duck calls and orangutan hoots) are real, and not his own. Johnson's skills as a ventriloquist are, simply, amazing.

Where he could use some refinement is in shaping all this material into a piece of theater. The lecture does get too lecture-y, and the stand-up routine, entertaining as it is, does take us too far into the mood of a nightclub. (Which is no fun without the drinks.) There are also a few too many digressions on the path from a Texas childhood spent making toys talk, through gigs at Astroworld and Six Flags, up to fame on 1970s TV's ``Soap." With a tighter narrative line, Johnson's real insights would come through with greater clarity.

``You never know why you get the life you do," he says at one point. That's something we can all feel, and something that, in a charmingly self-deprecating way, he reveals as a particular wonderment for a ventriloquist. He knows that this life is odd, offbeat, maybe even a little spooky. He also knows that's part of its appeal. If he can shape his story a little more artfully, he will make us understand it more deeply, too.

Louise Kennedy can be reached at kennedy@globe.com.