Forget Me Not

 

At a secret downtown location until March 1, 2020
Tickets from $94 at tickets.thecultch.com or 604-251-1363

Posted February 28, 2020

There was a moment in Forget Me Not when, after having been invited with everyone else in the audience to participate, I seriously considered stepping into the action to stop something terrible from happening. We had all been given our very own handmade-by-Ronnie-Burkett hand puppet for the evening and we were variously called “pilgrims” and “witnesses” so we felt, in a way, part of the show. But the bad thing that was happening was all in master puppeteer Ronnie Burkett’s plan and it would have been a mistake to intervene. But, oh, how I wanted to. Our participation, just like that of the puppets, was firmly under the puppet master’s control.

Alberta-born Burkett is a genius and a well-deserved recipient of the Order of Canada. He has delighted thousands of adult theatre-goers with his puppetry. I have seen all the shows that he has brought to Vancouver including Tinka’s New Dress, Provenance, Penny Plain and The Daisy Theatre. Certain characters that Burkett has created will remain with me forever: Esmé Massengill, Edna Rural, Penny Plain and that most beloved of all, Schnitzel. That I am a huge fan is an understatement.

Presented by the Cultch, Forget Me Not is like no other show Burkett has done: the room is huge and randomly filled with enough benches, sofas, upholstered and un-upholstered  chairs to seat about a hundred. There is no stage. We are encouraged to follow him around the room, puppets on hands. Several audience members are given flashlights to illuminate the action. There’s a record player and when Burkett says, “Music, maestro, please”, the nearest person to the machine puts the needle down on the record. (Music is composed by John Alcorn, Burkett’s partner.) We are, Burkett tells us, going to be witnesses to various “sacred ceremonies”.

But like marionette strings, it’s not easy to untangle the interwoven narrative strands. We learn that one beautiful young woman/puppet, is asked by a handsome young man/puppet whom she secretly loves, to write a love letter. But the billet doux is not for her but for another woman. That disappointment changes the course of her life and we see her, years later, scrawny, breasts drooping, unloved, after a lifetime of writing love letters for others.

But then there’s a Punch-and-Judy-style show, reminiscent of Itchy and Scratchy in The Simpsons. Zacko mistreats his flunky Nutzo Baad who keeps reappearing as a different character in a vaudeville sketch. It’s a tour de force with Burkett ‘wearing’ a stage and manipulating hand puppets while managing Nutzo’s rapid-fire costume changes. It’s amazingly skilled but it doesn’t make any narrative sense until close to the end of the show.

It’s a workout for Burkett, he’s bathed in sweat and it will be a wonder if his voice holds out. Zacko growls his lines at very high decibels.

The audience parades their hand puppets around the room, greeting other puppets, shaking hands with other puppets, bowing and hugging. Burkett invites us to become ‘other’  but I can’t say I actually got there regardless of how much I wanted to.

Ronnie Burkett’s shows are as much about Burkett as they are about the unfolding story. In the past, he has been relaxed, playful, naughty: we love Ronnie. In this show, he is more demanding. He is the puppet master; we are his puppets. I felt a certain desperation in Forget Me Not, as if all was not well – and it worried me. Forget Me Not? Who is asking not to be forgotten? Burkett?

But perhaps this is another Ronnie Burkett – as well as that other lovable, sweet-natured, darkly funny guy who also happens to be ridiculously intelligent and gifted. This Ronnie is darker, more driven and appears to be struggling to say something that’s critically important to him. In all his shows, he has something meaningful to say; it’s just now, in this show, there’s urgency. Or maybe it’s just the end of the run of a hugely physically and emotionally draining performance.

Apparently, the way he suggests we hold our little puppets – index finger into the head, thumb and pinky finger into the arms, middle and ring fingers folded down into the palm – is American sign language for “love.” Unsettling as Forget Me Not is now and again, every night about a hundred strangers, puppets mounted on their hand and arm, signal “love” to Ronnie Burkett for a couple of uninterrupted hours.

Sly fellow.