Wednesday 9 December 2015

Daisy's a doozy of puppetry & cheek @ d'Cultch

N.B. BLR gives readers a Quicky version that features three sections of just a few paragraphs that sum up my overall take on the show. Readerwho want more back-story & production details can read the expanded review in the Wordy version that follows.

Quicky Version

From the footlights :  This reviewer is still a relative newby to the current BLR phase of Vancouver play reviewing (original newspaper phase from '73-'88). Thus I trust I'm forgiven to admit that seeing puppeteer Ronnie Burkett's The Daisy Show at The Cultch on Dec. 8th was my inaugural take of "the renowned puppeteer provocateur" the program describes. For the few others who might not know his work, Lethbridge-born Burkett is a 58-year-old ironic, cheeky madman who has a troupe of some 40 marionettes, a baker's dozen of which he brings to life on a night. 

The current show is fresh from an October run off-off-Broadway in NYC @ the Baryshnikov Arts Centre where the New York Times gave him a snappy and Pip pip! review ["Mr. Burkett is a benevolent god: indelicate, a little poignant and kind of fantastic."] 

The script sets its aim squarely at the jr. adult crowd due to its bawdy, risqué, potty-mouthed routines. Well, "routines" is a bit of a misnomer because each night's show changes. And not simply because Burkett is an accomplished ad lib artist, he invites the crowd to help choose which of the wood-&-cloth stringed creatures they want most to see. 

If you're a Jim Henson hanger-on-er or if the work of Jeff Dunham snizzles your fancy, you can't miss with Burkett -- unless the tickets are all sold out and likely will be right smartly.

  
What makes the show click : Burkett's talents are huge and many. Schnitz challenges him : "Why are you up there jerking me around?" And it is his skill at pulling the right strings at the right time that is one aspect of his ginormous talent. But mostly it is his Robin Williams-y Gatling gun delivery while dancing a marionette in each hand. With a voice reminiscent of Rick Mercer when he's doing straight-up stuff, basso profundo when embellishing a character, Burkett is absolutely nonpareil when he flips instantly into his sotte voce inner voice -- usually with Schnitz, the show's narrator -- that is indescribably clever and snivelly, much like what our own inner voices sound like to us. 

At show's end Schnitz returns and does a very cute monologue with his nitey-nite bear Justin. All about "stepping over the line", i.e. taking chances "because it's 2015", about renewing one's faith in the future, in the hope, again, that our better angels flutter forth from us. Such hope we must have, we're reminded, despite our anxieties about refugees, about gathering in groups in public places post-Paris or San Bernardino to celebrate the season or witness artistic performance, about sharing the joy community gives us regardless of the risks.

Who gonna like :  As noted up top, liking puppets is a must. Not minding double entendres linked to erotogenesis and descriptive bodily function references is also a must. With those as givens -- and for me they are -- Ronnie Burkett's show is a masterwork of ingenious creativity and skilled delivery that is simply breathtaking. That he can do all these voices, sing, twitter the marionettes, ad lib the smart-assisms night-after-night-after-night is a stupendous piece of theatre mania to witness. Final note, redux : "You can't miss with Burkett -- unless the tickets are all sold out and likely will be right smartly."

Wordy Version

From the footlights :  This reviewer is still a relative newby to the current BLR phase of Vancouver play reviewing (original newspaper phase from '73-'88). Thus I trust I'm forgiven to admit that seeing puppeteer Ronnie Burkett's The Daisy Show at The Cultch on Dec. 8th was my inaugural take of "the renowned puppeteer provocateur" the program describes. For the few others who might not know his work, Lethbridge-born Burkett is a 58-year-old ironic, cheeky madman who has a troupe of some 40 marionettes, a baker's dozen of which he brings to life on a night. 

The current show is fresh from an October run off-off-Broadway in NYC @ the Baryshnikov Arts Centre where the New York Times gave him a snappy and Pip pip! review ["Mr. Burkett is a benevolent god: indelicate, a little poignant and kind of fantastic."] 

The script sets its aim squarely at the jr. adult crowd due to its bawdy, risqué, potty-mouthed routines. Well, "routines" is a bit of a misnomer because each night's show changes. And not simply because Burkett is an accomplished ad lib artist, he invites the crowd to help choose which of the wood-&-cloth stringed creatures they want most to see. 

If you're a Jim Henson hanger-on-er or if the work of Jeff Dunham snizzles your fancy, you can't miss with Burkett -- unless the tickets are all sold out and likely will be right smartly.

How it's all put together : Puppeteering has been around for years heck, centuries. And its perpetrators have at times so unsettled the authorities that they've been killed for their shows (see Addendum that explains the Czech origin of the expression "daisies").  In the hands of Burkett, who reportedly has been practicing and perfecting his schtick ever since he saw my namesake Bil Baird's puppets in 1965 in The Sound of Music, the "point" of his company The Theatre of Marionettes is to entertain by hitting folks right where their neuroses are nestled. Who isn't affected by lust? Or troubled about being accepted at face value, for who they are. Or confused about love. About ongoing relationships that have de-fizzed. About whatever god they might like or loathe or long for, achingly. About aging and sickness and dying.

Some of Burkett's monologues are scripted playlets, but much of his stuff simply riffs on current events in the towns where he puts on his shows. Certain favourite characters from earlier of his roster of 13 productions over the years make command appearances. Such as Edna Rural from Turnip Corners, Alberta, who's a chattery cut-up in a Sears housedress. Another fave is Schnitzel, the wispy elfin metamorph with a daisy growing out its head. Who in Daisy plays opposite a sex-hyped baldie named Franz. Or Esme Massengill ("esteemed douche" suggests Urban Dictionary) who was too drunk backstage to perform last night, Burkett advised, but the chief graphic on its advertising posters. Also Rosemary Focaccia -- Burkett has a food-jones for his act's various names, no question -- who made a brief but noisome appearance. 

As Dunham does so expertly, equally so Burkett : it's Burkett's manic, antic and endlessly mischievous brain that brings all these characters to life, gives them personalities crowds will latch onto, makes them as real to big-kid audiences as ol' long-nose Pinocchio was to Geppetto and grammar school kids.

The rainy Tuesday crowd : Burkett is famous for riddling his marionette monologues with local references, often vulgar, to bring his humour home. Such zingers as "Who the fuck crosses Commercial Drive in the rain on a Tuesday to see a fucken puppet show?" the bullying priapic Franz demands to know of wee Schnitz. And when Schnitz starts to put on an air or two, Franz scoffs : "Don't worry about 'acting' too much, you'll never get a Jessie nomination in this city, not even with 10 shows in 30 years...", referring of course to himself. And as if to zap early doubters who wonder about his satyric and scatological script, Schnitz asks "Why do you make everything dirty?" Franz instantly retorts "Because they like it."

In all there were some 10 skits presented, including three musical numbers sung by Burkett, one or two extended monologues and some shorter snatches to mix up the pace. The crowd was largely a 30-something group with some mom's and grandma's brought along for a Christmas treat. From the applause meter, maybe a third of the Cultch crowd had seen Burkett before, but he had the house in his hand from moment one.

What makes the show click : Burkett's talents are huge and many. Schnitz challenges him : "Why are you up there jerking me around?" And it is his skill at pulling the right strings at the right time that is one aspect of his ginormous talent. But mostly it is his Robin Williams-y Gatling gun delivery while dancing a marionette in each hand. With a voice reminiscent of Rick Mercer when he's doing straight-up stuff, basso profundo when embellishing a character, Burkett is absolutely nonpareil when he flips instantly into his sotte voce inner voice -- usually with Schnitz, the show's narrator -- that is indescribably clever and snivelly, much like what our own inner voices sound like to us. 

Audience participation is a must for a Burkett show. In the fifth scene he features a pianist he's named Ivor Tinkles with fading operatic diva he calls Clara Dribbles (body part references are equal to the foody ones in his characters' names). To assist, he searches the crowd for a buff male to man the Tinkles marionette. Dec. 8th seven rows up he found one unsuspecting Daniel Holburn* -- not a plant -- and convinced him to do the bit which even included Holburn being asked to strip off his sweater and go bare-chested for a piece while sharing the puppeteer's bridge with Burkett. Every step of the way Holburn was cheery & chipper and played along : his double-take @ Burkett at the "strip" command was priceless. [*I caught up with Daniel at show's end and he generously permitted me to use his last name in the BLR review.]

Most compleat vignette of the night was Burkett's 20 minutes or so verbal diary of long-time favourite Edna Rural in her cheap Sears polyester housedress "from Communist China" that sticks to her 80-year-old legs. "If you don't stop talking you don't get the bad news," Edna explains. She then launches into a long tale about her late farmer husband Stanley and the nooner they had for dessert at 12:45 each day for 63 years. Also the Vancouver liaison she had all those years, at Christmas and Easter, when Stanley would send her off to the downtown Hudson's Bay Company to buy some new Naturalizer shoes. That Helgar the Dutch immigrant dutifully fit for her. But this "Same Time Next Year" story differs in that Helgar was a transvestite back in the day before that became maybe a bit passe given a 1st-world topsy-turvy'd in its gender assumptions by Caitlin Jenner. Quite a poignant story out of Turnip Corners, no question. Being told via Burkett thru marionettes makes it none the less so.

At show's end Schnitz returns and does a very cute monologue with his nitey-nite bear Justin. All about "stepping over the line", i.e. taking chances "because it's 2015", about renewing one's faith in the future, in the hope, again, that our better angels flutter forth from us. Such hope we must have, we're reminded, despite our anxieties about gathering in groups in public places post-Paris or San Bernardino to celebrate the season or witness artistic performance, about sharing the joy community gives us regardless of the risks.

Who gonna like :  As noted up top, liking puppets is a must. Not minding double entendres linked to erotogenesis and descriptive bodily function references is also a must. With those as givens -- and for me they are -- Ronnie Burkett's show is a masterwork of ingenious creativity and skilled delivery that is simply breathtaking. That he can do all these voices, sing, twitter the marionettes, ad lib the smart-assisms night-after-night-after-night is a stupendous piece of theatre mania to witness. Final note, redux : "You can't miss with Burkett -- unless the tickets are all sold out and likely will be right smartly."

Particulars :  Created & performed by Ronnie Burkett. At the Cultch Historic Theatre, Vennables at Victoria in EastVan, through December 20. Run-time between 90-120 minutes depending on how responsive "the dark people" [audience] turn out to be. Intermission? No. And no re-admits if you leave to visit the WC.  Tickets & schedules : Box office phone 604.251.1363 or via the web @ thecultch.com.

Production team : Marionette, Costume & Set Design : Ronnie Burkett.  Music & Lyrics & Sound Design : John Alcorn.  Production Manager & Artistic Associate : Terri Gillis.  Stage Manager : Crystal Salverda  Associate Producer : John Lambert.  Costumes : Kim Crossley Puppet Builders (Angela Talbot, Gemma James-Smith, Marcus Jamin w/ Gil Garratt & Martin Herbert).  Shoes : Camellia Koo.  Accessories : Robin Fisher.  Marionette Controls : Luman Coad.  Majordomos : Robbie Buttinsky & Daisy Padunkles [sic].

Addendum : Some interesting recent history around puppetry within the Soviet Union is provided by the website rogueruby.com which features an essay "History of Radical Puppetry" by visual-&-performing artist K. Ruby whose e-mail handle is "wisefool". An edited squib of her essay is provided below given the Czech "daisies" hook that Mr. Burkett brings to this particular production of his :

Under socialism Lenin had said, art would no longer serve the elite, "the upper 10,000 suffering from boredom and obesity," but the tense of millions of labouring people, "the flower of the country, its strength and future."

The design of mass festivals was not just a phenomenon but also an intentional and orchestrated design of the communist party, who were well aware of the power of visual metaphor. Early festivals were dominated by avant-garde artists, the futurists. But in the 20's and 30's "fine artists" were dissuaded and themes were simplified and made representational, carried out by the workers and unions themselves. Throughout the years before World War II, May Day and the Anniversary of the Revolution were events filled with elaborate and highly evocative street art, giant statuary, puppets of the evil imperialists designed to denigrate the bourgeois and celebrate the workers.


Indicative of the contradictions inherent to the Russian Revolutional Spirit, is the evolution of the party's relationship to the puppet character Petrouchka. Petrouchka was an underdog and popular hero, a working class trickster in conflict with authority, much like Punch -- a perfect revolutionary. The Red Petrouchka Collective started in 1927 and dozens of others sprang up in the following years. But of course Petrouchka's eternal problems with authority soon led the Soviet state to suppress the anarchic and rebellious Petrouchka in favour of a more benign version of the character, suitable only for children -- a parallel to the watering down of puppetry in the west for purposes of education and advertising.


Undisputed leaders of puppetry in Europe, the Czech puppeteers also had a tradition of radical puppetry. When the Czech language was banned by the Austrian Hungarian empire in the 19th century, puppeteers continued to perform in the Czech language as an act of defiance. During Nazi occupation, Czech puppeteers organized illegal underground performances in homes and basements with anti-fascist themes, called "daisies". Karel Capek, who wrote the famous anti-technology play RUR and coined the word robot, wrote anti-fascist prose pieces for the puppeteers. Josef Skupa, a famous popular puppeteer known for his leading character Spejbl, did wartime tours of adult puppet plays with subtle allegorical points imperceptible to the censor. In the concentration camps, Czech women made puppet shows from scraps of nothing to keep up their morale. Eventually the Nazis suppressed all Czech puppetry and over 100 skilled puppeteers died under torture in the camps.


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