Friday, November 20, 2015

The Daisy Theatre

I just love the faces on those puppets.
Over the years I have watched the career of puppeteer Ronnie Burkett.  He is playing at the Metro Theatre in Victoria, $40 at the door to a sold out house now.

The Daisy theatre is one of his funny shows while the other shows have explored serious subjects like the Holocaust, AIDS, the second comoing of Christ and the end of civilization.

One of his old characters, Edna Rural of Turnip Corners will be there.  I have always loved her -- she is such a crazy woman, giving out her recipes that include cough syrup and NeoCitran and telling us about her tattoos.

In his travelling show Burkett is bringing 90 of his 500 characters that he owns.  Only 40 of them will come out on stage.

We received an email that says the show is 2 hours long and there is no seating after the show begins.
Harsh for the price of the show, but forewarned is good.

Burkett explores the apocolypse
in Penny Plain
The critic who watched Burkett at the Baryshnikov Arts Centre in New York in October called him "a benevolent god: indelcate, a little poignant and kind of fantastic."

Nice for him to have achieved godhood in this life.

Arta

2 comments:

  1. Seeing one of his productions. One of the many gifts you gave me. One of my colleagues's daughters specializes in puppetry. For Halloween she dressed as a marionette with sticks above her and strings attached to her elbows and wrists. So clever.

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  2. More on Burkett, since you reminded me that you have seen him, Bonnie. He was recycling many of his bit pieces. In fact he comes out and announces that he doesn't exactly know which of his puppets will arrive on stage for that performance -- it will be up to the audience. Edna from Turnip Corners, Alberta, always makes an appearance though.

    Long after the performance was over, Rebecca and I were discussing either jokes, or the politics of what Burkett does.

    He had a funny line in his Canadian vs U.S. pieces. He said that in the U.S. they have something Canadians don't know about called show (long pause) business. He had taken his hands and put show metaphorically on one side of the stage and business on the other.

    Then he said in Canada we have the word grant in between.

    Of course this is funny to us, for we all know that the arts exists because of the incredible grants that the government gives out.

    Well ... enough of Burkett. I am writing all of the possible places to go in the next few weeks. I wonder if A Winter's Tale is coming your way. I think Salmon Arm does opera and ballet, only.

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