Written, Directed and Performed by Ronnie Burkett
At Factory Theatre
 till February 26, 2012

            I would not be truthful if I did not say that I found Ronnie Burkett’s new puppet show a little disappointing. As usual, Burkett is a master puppeteer. He can make all his characters come to vibrant life, and his sense of visual design is impeccable. His vocal technique, while accomplished, is limited in certain ways—at least as far as young females are concerned. He is superb with capturing the voices of older folk and animal characters, and his writing demonstrates a real empathy with these creations. He is also a humanist, whose sensibility is finely attuned to the “un-civilizing” influences of contemporary life. And he is an ambitious artist—but this very virtue is also his problem because he often attempts far more than is good for his craft.

            Penny Plain is a case in point. Set in a boarding house run by old, blind Penny Plain, and peopled by “wounded” characters (such as Jepetto of Pinocchio fame, a cross-dressing bank-teller, a childless spinster who talks to plants, an hysterical mannish female editor, a shrill old woman with a walker, et cetera), it presents a microcosm of a dystopian world. Old Penny’s constant companion is Jeffrey, a dog whom she has tried to turn into a gentleman. When Jeffrey leaves to make his way in the world, Penny has to find a replacement—which is an excuse for Burkett to mix other canines into the fable: Hickory Sanchez, the randy Mexican Chihuahua, and Kitty Ka Poodle, the lascivious, streetwise poodle. All these animals are hugely entertaining with their quirks of personality, so much so that I wish they had a show all their own, but here they stick out like entertaining sideshows because their roles in this show are of questionable value. The canines are probably meant to show that it is a dog-eat-dog world—and in this case, in a literal sense. Or it could also mean that humans are to blame for denaturing animals and giving them causes to become dangerously feral. However, the show (too long at 100 minutes without intermission) could easily have worked without these creatures.

            Then, too, some of the human characters seem to lack a strong connection to the through-line. There is a pair of vulgar Southerners (he looking like an Elvis impersonator in a camouflage jumpsuit; she looking and sounding like busty white trash), Oliver (a schoolboy in a breathing mask), Tuppence (a girl with blonde pigtails), and Gepetto of Pinocchio fame who creates a surrogate child out of a ketchup bottle, teaspoons, and detergent box. Burkett would probably argue that they all connect to his view of a terribly dysfunctional world in which things are completely out of joint and where there is no firm centre, but the fact is that they often seem redundant to the main thrust of the story.

            Burkett is a great craftsman and artist. His set design is terrific (frosted glass windows) and an almost gothic sense to the boarding house; his costumes are brilliant; Kevin Humphrey’s lighting faultless; and John Alcorn’s music and sound design just as flawless. But Burkett imposes himself too strongly on the story, turning from master manipulator to post-modern monologist at one point—to what point I cannot quite fathom. He merely adds to the length without quite making the story fully cohesive. Moreover, there is little in Penny Plain that has not already been explored in earlier shows such as Street of Blood, Old Friends, or Ten Days on Earth. Nevertheless, if anyone has not already experienced Ronnie Burkett’s virtuosity, this new show pays good dividends.

Go Back to: Stage Reviews