Wonderful Joe

Postcard review by Caroline Russell-King

Show – Wonderful Joe

Playwright – Ronnie Burkett music and lyrics by John Alcorn.

Production Company/Theatre space – One Yellow Rabbit, High Performance Rodeo, in association with associate producer John Lambert, Martha Cohen Theatre, Arts Commons.

Length – 1 ACT (90 minutes)

Genre/s – Drama, comedy, told through marionettes.

Premise – Joe, evicted from his apartment, starts off on an adventure with his dog, saying goodbye to the colourful residents on the notorious street, watching the last performance of a cabaret in the ally, and comforting a runaway child with golden hope.

Why this play? Why now? – A rare treat. This piece deals with gentrification, homelessness, eldercare, disenfranchisement, rape, child abuse, sex trade workers, mental illness, and LGBTIA issues. But don’t let this scare you off, it’s not a preachy or agitprop piece. It’s humanity through humour, grace, magic, passion, and poignancy.

Curiosities – I wondered why (in the absence of the preshow chat) the ‘turn off your cell phone reminder’ could have been done by the PA in the lobby or a gentle/stern reminder by the ushers.

Notable Moment – The flashback of the cast out boy in clown pants and toy dog.

Notable writing – Burkett doesn’t shy away from politics. The issues he’s passionate about have infused his work for decades. These are the foibles of flawed “humans”. The cabaret show-within-a-show is something that he has done before, allowing characters to have a star turn. He plays with metaphors of extinction in dinosaurs, humans, neighborhoods, and humanity.  (Why his scripts aren’t performed by humans, regularly, amazes me.)

Notable performances –Playing all the dozen or so parts Burkett is, as ever, simply wonderful. Deft in his talent he makes each character distinct. Even though there is only his voice it’s as if the characters sometimes talk over each other. He is able to elicit huge guffaws and wet eyes (one person behind me was quietly sobbing). He is a master entertainer, one of a kind, Canadian treasure.

Notable design/Production – Each hand-crafted marionette is an exquisite art piece. Each is costumed with intricate attention to detail. This is not hyperbole.

Notable direction – The only challenge with this art form is that small theatre spaces can’t handle the crowds and large theatre spaces are challenging because of the obvious scale of the characters. Book early – sit as close as you can.

One reason to see this show – This is what genius looks like.