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written and directed by Ronnie Burkett

Ronnie Burkett Theatre of Marionettes, Jane Mallett Theatre, Toronto

October 5-23, 2024

Joe: “We’re going on a great adventure”

Any show by master marionettist Ronnie Burkett is self-recommending and Burkett’s latest show Wonderful Joe is no exception. It is a deceptively straightforward tale about one day in the life of an elderly gay man, but its allusiveness and the emotions it evokes tell you that it is about something momentous and mysterious. As usual, Burkett’s marionettes are works of art. Burkett’s complex manipulation of these creations and his giving them voice is like watching a piano virtuoso and virtuoso vocalist in one.

Wonderful Joe takes a look at the present-day world and finds that it is not so wonderful. Neighbourhoods are being destroyed, nature is being destroyed, lives are being destroyed. Yet, the marvel of the title character Joe Pickle is that he has somehow maintained his innocence and optimism despite everything.

The action begins on Burkett’s stage-upon-the-stage depicting a run-down graffitied wall in Joe’s neighbourhood. Joe’s South Asian landlord Sunny tells Joe the bad news that a developer has bought the building and is evicting all the tenants including Sunny. The developer plans to build a condo in its place that will be able to house only a fraction of the old building’s present tenants.

In response, Joe decides to go for a walk with his scruffy dog Mister. All the people he meets from his neighbourhood ask Joe what his plans are and where he’s going to move. His plan is to do nothing but go on his walk. He keeps telling people that he and Mister are “going on a great adventure”. As long as he’s with Mister, he’s fine. Inklings that this adventure has greater significance comes when Joe turns down offers of shelter from people he meets, including a kind old man who has always had a crush on Joe.

A significant interlude arises when Joe meets a foul-mouthed old lady, Minnie Shingles, who fancies herself an artiste and invites Joe to see her latest show which will be staged amid the garbage in a back alley. Burkett then presents Minnie’s show, a play-within-a-play, consisting of three street people telling their life stories. Minnie’s idea is that real-life stories of the disenfranchised become art simply by being told. If we thought loss of home and livelihood are felt only by the lower ranks of society, Burkett presents us with a dazed office worker who has just been let go due to downsizing and has had to clear out his office.

The world Joe wanders through seems to be one of entropy, disintegration and disimprovement. Proof that this is true comes when we meet Mother Nature, naked, decrepit and wearing a boa of garbage bags, who sings the song “Look at Me Now” that evokes the mood of the world’s end of Weimar cabarets.

By including the personification of Nature, Burkett seems to tell us that Joe’s journey with Mister is not just a walk around the block but a look into the existence itself and the beliefs that help us tolerate it. Indeed, Joe happens to walk by a gay bar where no less symbolic figures are hanging out than an off-season Santa Claus, Jesus and the Tooth Fairy, who complains about how bad business has become.

Joe’s final encounter is with a girl, Serengeti Levin-Woo known as Getty, who has run away from her private school when the principal disciplined her for wearing a black clown nose. Though they initially seem so different, it turns out that Getty needs Joe’s advice and he has something valuable to teach her. Joe tells her about the Japanese art of kintsugi (金継ぎ) in which broken pottery is mended with gold, thus making the broken object more valuable than it was before. We have to wonder whether Burkett sees this as the function of art – mending a fragmented world to create something of value.

The show is both hilarious and sad. Through Joe, Burkett demonstrates how belief can change reality no matter how appalling that reality may be. Belief can even give life to lifeless objects. A chill went through me when I perceived this during the show. For what else but animating the inanimate is Burkett doing with his 17 marionettes and six hand puppets? And what else is happening when we look at Burkett’s creations move, talk and sing and forget there are strings and that Burkett, amazingly, is lending all the characters distinct voices and movements?

Wonderful Joe may seem to be a simple story but its implications are profound – no less than the meaning of life, death and art. This is a show that must be seen not only by fans of puppetry but by all lover of theatre in general.

Christopher Hoile

Photo: Joe and Mister; Ronnie Burkett with puppets of Sunny and Joe; Mother Nature. © 2024 Ian Jackson.

For tickets visit: tolive.com.