PENNY PLAIN written and performed by Ronnie Burkett (Ronnie Burkett Theatre of Marionettes/Factory Theatre, 125 Bathurst). Runs to February 26, Tuesday-Saturday 8 pm, matinee Sunday 2 pm. $38-$55, Sunday pwyc. 416-504-9971. See listing. Rating: NNNN
Family ties are tenaciously, relentlessly strong, even at the end of the world.
Ronnie Burkett’s Penny Plain is set during the apocalypse, but we see none of the devastation. The action takes place in the house of the blind Penny Plain, a wise old woman who harbours various boarders and visitors from those outside disasters.
Penny’s anthropomorphized dog, Geoffrey, her companion and best friend, sets off to see the world while he can, offering various candidates as his substitute. Penny chooses Tuppence, a troubled young orphan who passes herself off as a hound.
She’s hardly the most unusual character here, though, for we also meet a noise-hating serial killer who sports an unusual weapon, the murderer’s raunchy and demanding mother, a pair of Christian survivalists in camouflage gear and the puppet-maker Gepetto, in disguise since his son Pinocchio left him.
As entertaining as the show is, with its combination of humorous and touching moments, it aims for more. While destruction seems inevitable, there’s also hope for a future in the person of Evie – surely not a chance name – who desperately wants a child in what might be the new Eden of Penny’s house. Evie might have some help from Oliver, a shy young man in a gas mask who’s determined not to be wiped out.
The show has many wonderful moments, but none more poignant than the reunion of Gepetto and his grown-up son, one of a series of parent-child relationships, both literal and metaphorical, woven through the script.
Drama, pain, love and need are all part of these relationships they add a richness to the narrative in the dialogue but also in the way a puppet drops its head, relaxes a shoulder or leans in to another. At one point I could swear I saw one character smile when a formerly belligerent younger man made a tender gesture.
But that’s part of the magic of Burkett’s work, presented here with an atmospheric sound design by John Alcorn and lighting by Kevin Humphrey. The puppeteer’s design for set and marionettes is beautiful as always, his voicing of the many characters and the limpid way he moves them across the stage a treat. Even the offstage marionettes have an ethereal quality as they sway ghostlike, their backs to us until their creator brings them to life centre stage.
