THEATRE REVIEW: Ronnie Burkett’s Penny Plain

We know something’s up even before Ronnie Burkett appears on stage to begin manipulating his long-string puppets. News reports - recorded apparently by real news readers from across the country - boom out telling of imminent chaos. The banking system has failed, utilities have been cut off, a global pandemic has broken out, Iceland has sunk into the sea taking its entire population with it and billions are dead, including two-thirds of the population of Canada.

Then we’re introduced to Miss Penny Plain, who, despite being blind and having never in years ventured outside the rooming house she runs, clearly knows all about that outside world and the emerging chaos. She knows it not only from those news radio reports but also from her tenants; they race in and out telling Miss Plain - and us - all about it as the outside encroaches and chaos ensues.

And what a crazy bunch they are, those rooming house tenants. There’s a dog that wants to be a man and a girl who wants to be a dog. There’s a mad old lady who’s a serial murderer (and with whom I have some empathy, given that one of her victims is a bus passenger who talks too loudly on her cellphone). Then there’s the crazy American religious fundamentalist couple who’ve escaped the chaos in the US only to die in Canada when the aforementioned mad old lady bricks up the windows in Miss Plain’s basement, where they’re lodging. All the characters interact with each other, sometimes in a supportive way, at other times becoming each other’s worst nightmares. Yet, through it all, Penny Plain remains serene; she’s foreseen this day for a long time and has prepared for it.

There’s a serious story here though. Through the course of the play’s 100 minutes, we live through the beginning and the end of a journey taking place during the final days of human kind. We’re witnessing the chaos at the end of the world and how human beings are likely to react to such an apocalyptic event. We’ve destroyed ourselves through greed, war, plague and environmental collapse.

The story is told by master puppeteer Ronnie Burkett, who has brought this show to Toronto audiences after successful runs in Edmonton, Calgary and Vancouver. His puppets, although only pint-sized, are as realistic as any human stage actor and are so captivating that you quickly forget that Burkett is up in the shadows on a platform, manipulating each of the 25 or so puppets on a string and giving unique voices to each. I must confess, though, that I held my breath on more than one occasion as Burkett jumped in the semi-darkness across the metre-wide gap between the two platforms. Luckily he was sure-footed.

Gay content? There’s a campy humour and sensibility to much of the dialogue (which is brilliant throughout) which will resonate with most gay audiences. And, as Burkett responded to Paul Bellini who asked him the same question for fab magazine “Yes, there’s a giant homo up top pulling all the strings and talking in funny voices”.

This is a visually stunning show performed by a brilliant puppet master. It’s meant to provoke and make you think. So bring a friend and you’ll be talking about it together for a long time

See John's video interview with Ronnie Burkett and a scene from Penny Plain here.

 Penny Plain plays now through February 26, 2012 at Factory Theatre’s Mainspace

125 Bathurst Street at Adelaide, Toronto, Ontario.

For tickets, visit or call the box office at 416 504 9971 or purchase online at www.factorytheatre.ca

Photo credits: Ronnie Burkett/Theatre of Marionettes. Photo by Trudie Lee.