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    Tinka's New Dress
    Tinka's New Dress
    Tinka's New Dress
    Ebook136 pages1 hour

    Tinka's New Dress

    By Ronnie Burkett and Liz Nicholls

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    About this ebook

    Two old friends become puppeteers, each performing with the same beloved folk characters, Franz and Schnitzel. Fipsi, ambitious and naive, aligns herself with the rule government, the Common Good. Carl, headstrong and outspoken, is forced underground as his satirical shows parody the censorship and oppression of the Common Good.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPlaywrights Canada Press
    Release dateAug 15, 2012
    ISBN9781770910850
    Tinka's New Dress
    Author

    Ronnie Burkett

    Ronnie Burkett has been captivated by puppetry since the age of seven and began touring his shows around Alberta at the age of fourteen. Ronnie Burkett Theatre of Marionettes was formed in 1986, continuously playing on Canada’s major stages and as a guest company on numerous tours abroad. Ronnie has received the 2009 Siminovitch Prize in Theatre, the Herbert Whittaker Drama Bench Award for Outstanding Contribution to Canadian Theatre, a Village Voice OBIE Award, and four Citations of Excellence from the American Center of the Union Internationale de la Marionnette. In 2019, Ronnie Burkett was appointed as an Officer of the Order of Canada. Forget Me Not is the fourteenth production from Ronnie Burkett Theatre of Marionettes, following the international successes Penny Plain, Billy Twinkle, 10 Days on Earth, Provenance, and the Memory Dress Trilogy of Tinka’s New Dress, Street of Blood, and Happy. The Daisy Theatre, Ronnie’s wildly popular and ever-changing marionette vaudeville show, and the Daisy Christmas show, Little Dickens, continue touring to great acclaim. Ronnie lives in Toronto, and from his studio (known in puppetry circles as Puppetland) he continues to imagine and create new work.

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      Book preview

      Tinka's New Dress - Ronnie Burkett

      Tinka’s New Dress

      Ronnie Burkett

      PLAYWRIGHTS CANADA PRESS

      TORONTO

      Other books by Ronnie Burkett:

      String Quartet

      Tinka’s New Dress

      Street of Blood

      Happy

      Provenance

      10 Days on Earth

      Billy Twinkle

      Penny Plain

      Note

      Two sections of the play are improvised at each performance. These are the character Carl’s underground Franz & Schnitzel puppet shows. Ronnie assumes the human portrayal of Carl for these, working on a small stage within the larger set and manipulating a cast of separate characters designed to look decidedly more puppet-like than the naturalistic marionettes in the dramatic body of the play.

      The title characters are Franz, a grotesque psycho-clown and his innocent sidekick Schnitzel, an elf-like child who longs to grow fairy wings. Their debates begin each improv section, and usually centre around social and political happenings of the (present) day. Sometimes these debates are silly, bawdy, or just comic, other times they carry significant satirical bite, depending on the news of the day, the audience, and certainly the performer’s whim.

      There is also the fat lady who sings in the form of Madame Rodrigue, the resident diva. She usually makes an appearance in the first section to berate and bully the audience, training them in the fine points of how to greet a star. In the second improv she sings a song, written that day and commenting on topical news, to one of five standard bedtracks composed by Cathy Nosaty.

      Other characters include the critic (usually brought onstage to comment on any particular reviewer not in the performer’s favour that moment), Schnitzel’s spiritual guide, Larry the Fairy, and The Judge. Interestingly, in over two hundred performances to date, The Judge has never been used.

      While there is commentary on Carl’s performances throughout the play, these two improvised sections have the performer playing to the audience by his wits, and serve to illustrate that Carl/Ronnie is in constant danger of crossing the line. The first section is introductory, light, and funny, while the second sequence later in the play is darker and risks a true emotional connection with the audience.

      The improvs bring the struggle of the artist as commentator vividly to life and relate directly to the audience. To merely describe them, or the impact of Schintzel on the audience is impossible, but it is profoundly strong and real, and gives the struggle of Carl and Tinka within the play a deeper resonance for those watching their journey.

      For the purposes of the published version of the play, the general structure and content of the improv sections are written down.

      Notes On Staging

      The set is a carousel, somewhere between human and puppet scale. There are twenty-one animals in two rows on the centre ring, which is flanked by an acting ring. The entire set floor is a circle, eighteen feet in diameter. The carousel ring, thirteen feet in diameter, is set into this, but upstage of the outer ring. Therefore, the acting ring is greater at the front of the set. The entire puppet cast, including duplicates, hang from the centre poles of each carousel figure, riding on the animal. The carousel is faded, almost ghostly, painted in sepia tones like a faded photograph.

      At the stage left side of the set, on the acting ring, is the puppet stage for The Franz & Schnitzel Show. The cast for this segment hangs behind the backdrop of the small stage, except for Franz and Schnitzel who hang on the miniature stage. This stage unit rides around the acting ring on a fixed castor system. By simply pushing the unit, it can be moved to centrestage front, and off again, to either side.

      On the front curve of the stage decking, which is one foot high, are wooden cutouts of letters reading JAKO SVEDEK A VAROVÁNÍ. This is the Czech translation of As a Witness and a Warning.

      Present on the acting ring, and in front of the set, are seven figures, referred to as The Officer, Mother, Thin Woman, Fat Man, Thin Man, Little Boy, and Little Girl. They are self-standing, made of cloth, and completely natural in tone with no shading or colour detail. This is The Populace. During the course of the action these figures are moved around the acting space as silent extras playing a variety of roles.

      Stage directions herein are kept to a minimum. The play is performed solely by Ronnie Burkett, and reference to him is throughout the stage directions.

      When a number appears after a character’s name in the stage directions, such as TINKA #3, it indicates a character represented by duplicate marionettes. This is most usually for costume changes, which require a separate figure for each. Tinka, for example, is represented by seven different marionettes.

      The play progresses from light to dark emotionally, and each scene is assigned a palette dictating colours and tones for costumes to further enhance this.

      Cathy Nosaty’s score and Brian Kerby’s lighting are integral to the overall design and performance, although lighting and sound notes within this text are referred to only when necessary to the reading.

      The play is performed without intermission, with a running time of approximately two hours and twelve minutes.

      Stage

      Tinka’s New Dress, produced by Rink-A-Dink Inc./Ronnie Burkett Theatre of Marionettes, premiered at Manitoba Theatre Centre, Winnipeg in November, 1994, with the following company:

      Written, designed, and performed by Ronnie Burkett

      Music and sound designed by Cathy Nosaty

      Lighting designed by Brian Kerby

      Stage managed by Leo Wieser (1994–1997) and Terri Gillis (1997–2002)

      Movement advisory by Denise Clarke

      Voice of The Common Good by Dana Brooks

      Marionettes, costumes, and set designed by Ronnie Burkett

      Carousel built by Martin Herbert

      Marionettes built by Ronnie Burkett

      Costumes and soft sculptures built by Kim Crossley

      Marionette controls by Luman Coad

      Puppet workshop assistance by Angela Talbot and Larry Smith

      Subsequent runs include the Canadian Stage Company, Toronto; the National Arts Centre, Ottawa; the Belfry Theatre, Victoria; Theatre Network, Edmonton; One Yellow Rabbit, The Secret Theatre, Calgary; Festival de Théâtre des Amériques, Montreal; Das Meininger Theatre, Germany; Usine C, Montreal; Henson International Festival of Puppetry, New York City; Dublin Theatre Festival, Dublin; Images Festival, Holland; queerupnorth, Manchester; Festival Theaterformen 2000, Hanover; The Barbican Centre, London; and The Melbourne Festival, Australia.

      Characters

      STEPHAN, an elderly puppeteer

      CARL, Stephan’s protege

      MRS. ASTRID VAN CRAIG, a wealthy patron

      TINKA, Carl’s seamstress sister

      MORAG, a transvestite cabaret performer

      FIPSI, Stephan’s other protege and Carl’s rival

      HETTIE, a radical poet and writer

      BENJAMIN, a friend of Hettie’s

      ISAËL, Mrs. Van Craig’s nephew

      Setting

      A vaguely European city and an internment camp on the outskirts.

      Time

      Ostensibly mid-twentieth century, although possibly the present

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