I love Ronnie Burkett. I am left in awe each and every time I see one of his marionette shows. It’s remarkable to note that he writes the scripts himself, and in fact has his fingers in every aspect of his shows (pardon the pun).
In January 2007, I went to see Ronnie do a reading of a script he was working on in Calgary. Just shy of two years later, that script came to life and Billy Twinkle: Requium For A Golden Boy debuted at the Citadel Theatre in Edmonton. It was well worth the trip I made up to see the show. I still remember the story of Billy Twinkle, a middle aged gay puppeteer who was standing on the bow of a cruise ship preparing to jump off before his mentor Sid Diamond appears in the form of a hand puppet and makes him relive his life. It was funny, brilliant, and simply put, must-see theatre.
After a small jaunt around the world, Billy returns to Burkett’s home province, playing at Alberta Theatre Projects from March 18th to April 11th this year.
“It has been an interesting year and a half. After we saw you guys in Edmonton we went to Ottawa, Vancouver, and then four cities in six weeks in England, and then Australia which was great,” said Burkett over the phone from Toronto, where he now lives.
“Ottawa and Vancouver’s audience reactions was through the roof, it was always full and had a positive reaction and laughed a lot. I found England kind of didn’t get it, I think they thought Billy was me which was a great compliment. They were sort of like why is he doing variety acts? Then in Australia we had a great reaction. At the end of the day I don’t know if Billy fits into the cannon of my other stuff, it seems to be singular in that there is a lot of me on stage and the puppet design is different—it is just a different beast. It has been a really interesting challenge to perform this show.”
The first half of Billy’s journey wasn’t easy as Burkett received word that his Mother was ill while he was in Australia.
“The second last week in Sydney at the Opera House, my Mom had a stroke in Medicine Hat. I canceled my second week, flew back to Alberta, got her in palliative care, stayed up for four days, flew back to Sidney to finish my final week and she passed away. It is literally the other side of the world. The [people of the] Sidney Opera House were great, they and my agent came to me and said go home now. I did the whole thing, my parents would want me to stay and I knew I should go. It came down to them saying here’s your flight, you are booked and going. You hear horror stories about producers and presenters in the arts but I was at one of the greatest places in the world and they also acted great. I’ve spent a lot of time in Medicine Hat this fall just sorting out my Mom’s stuff, which was unexpected.”
On top of that, Burkett and his partner, jazz singer John Alcorn, moved prior to going to Australia.
“I had a pretty large studio close to downtown Toronto and the rent just kept getting higher and higher. We had sold our house and were living in an apartment until we decided what we wanted to do. I sat down one day and realized if I bought a building and combined it all, I could cut my monthly costs in half. I built three shows in that studio and that seems to be my max, I needed a new environment to kick start myself. We bought a funky storefront and live in the apartment above it. The plan was to come back from Australia, do some renovations on the new studio, set up shop and get to work. With all the stuff in Alberta we really didn’t start renovating until the middle of December. The studio renovations will be done tomorrow and then I can finally unpack.”
There is some irony in how his life has unfolded during this time period.
“When I originally wrote Billy I was pretty adamant and clear that it was not my life story and then suddenly the minute Billy premiered, life started slapping me around like I was its little bitch. I kind of understand Billy on a whole bunch of other levels now. I won’t be standing on the edge of a ship waiting to jump”
Now that the shop is set up, Burkett is making plans for his next show.
“It is going to be a doozy! I was just chomping to get the studio setup so I could start drawing and playing again. There is some other Billy touring after Toronto but in terms of how my brain works during the spring and summer I will start actively getting going on the next one, pick a premier date and hustle up some money to get it built. 2011 is Theatre of Marionette’s 25th anniversary so I have always been keen to have a new show premier in 2011. We are already in 2010 so that isn’t very far away.”
It will be the first time in years that Burkett has planned to have two shows rotating in the same time period.
“That is what we will do. When there was the trilogy of Tinka’s New Dress, Street of Blood and Happy they were in rep for several years. Tinka might go to Germany and Street of Blood would be in England and Scotland. We were shipping stuff to various places and off we would go and do them. The downside of that was, I always had seven and a half hours of text in my head. After Provenance I just decided to do one show, tour it and put it to bed. With Billy I think we are going to keep it open while we are building and premiering the new show.”
As for Billy Twinkle itself, it truly is a work of art in many ways. I was privileged in Edmonton to get a rare behind the scenes look at his marionettes. They feature incredible detail, down to tiny hairs on puppets legs and little Nike logos. These minute details aren’t something the audience in a large theatre usually gets to see, which prompts the question, why put so much detail into them?
“I think I just ingrained in everybody that’s worked for me over the years that if I look down on something and see a blob of glue or unfinished joint or a stitch coming out of a costume, in the moment of performance I get derailed. I will think, you know what, I should have sanded that again, or I wish we would have made that out of something else. So that obsessive detail has a two-fold purpose. The first, so that the guy on stage never gets sidetracked and can actually stay in the show; the other point is sometimes the puppets are seen on a poster, or billboard and that detail does get seen in other media if not onstage. What is sad these days, and it is mostly because of cutbacks and the economy, is a lot of theatre craftspeople are not encouraged to be obsessive and do their best. Everything is on a tight budget and time-line. I am lucky enough to have some really great craftspeople working for me. I am quite happy to have things that are beautifully crafted just for the sake of it.”
Puppets are almost harder to work with than human actors. At times he has had to improvise if there is a caught string or costume issue.
“I do the hardest part at the start of the show, that stripper still fills me with terror. The preset and rigging of those strings for the stripper to work every night I take very seriously. Some nights one of those strings will just catch on a pin or I will pull it the wrong way. It is a puppet show and there are hundreds of strings up there so just when you get in the zone, you walk someone on and their string gets caught on the set.”
This being Burkett’s “big gay show”, it opens up dialogue with the audience who has in the past been primarily mixed gay and straight. It is also an opportunity to broach the topic with your own friends and family.
“A show like Billy, where he is gay, and the boy he meets at the end is new gay, a teenage kid who is so obviously out that he doesn’t have to come out. I think it would be a good way to open up some discussion. I have had a couple of puppeteers see the show who have actually worked on cruise ships: One from Australia and one from California who flew to Australia to see the show. They were both quite unnerved and unsettled by it. They both loved the show and appreciated each element of it but it was a bit too close to home. It wasn’t just the cruise ship aspect, one of them said all that early gay stuff brought up a lot of memories. People bring their frame of reference to the theatre. Some gay people will find Billy’s home life to be funny, but others will find it a little telling: Billy’s relationship with Bryan, coming out to your boss or mentor, any of that stuff.”
What interests him is the journey the audience takes with him, from a lighthearted whirlwind opening, slowly progressing to a tale with more elements of tragedy.
“I hear the reaction and gauge it by that. I have perfected a great technique where it looks like you are looking directly into their eyes and acknowledging them all but I don’t look at anyone. If I was to lock eyes with somebody in the audience I would be like a deer in the headlights. The start of the show is a variety show so people applaud and laugh. Then there is little Billy and his audacity as a child which is charming and funny. We are going along that route and then all of a sudden you see 15 year old Billy with his piano teacher and are really getting that this is a gay kid, and people start getting either worried about that, or open up a little more. By the time we see Billy in the nightclub being approached by the businessman to come to his room, that for me is the defining moment for the audience in the show. There will be people who will want to laugh really loudly at that because they are so uncomfortable, but other nights people get really quiet and go oh my goodness, this is a 15 year old boy being invited back to a motor lodge room by a probably a married businessman. That for me is where the show twists, that it is not all light and breezy but has some reality to it.”
While this description may seem like a downer, in truth Billy Twinkle is a very warm story that is far happier than Burkett’s past work.
“I was aware of when Billy was coming together that I needed to be a bit brighter overall. The design of the puppets is completely outside of what any of the past puppets looked like. The set is bright, the lighting, music is all brighter and fresher, and do not give in to Billy’s tragedy. At the end of the day it is an ambiguous ending, as I usually end things. You kind of expect that Billy is being bullied into going on, and sometimes that is what it is, you just go on.”
To experience a Ronnie Burkett piece is to truly experience the artistry of live theatre. This is the only time you will get to see Billy Twinkle: Reqium For A Golden Boy on stage in Calgary, so don’t miss out.
“If you are going to go to the theatre, this is home made, homegrown theatre that will be a really good night out. It is not a franchise musical on tour for the 12th time. It is about showing up and being part of an experience that comes and then will disappear forever. It really is live theatre I think. There are moments of great humor and joy and entertainment in this show so you get a little bit of everything for your buck.
