Burkett's world on a string
By MIKE ROSS

Ronnie Burkett isn't crazy. He knows that his puppets aren't alive - so there's no danger one will run amok and start cutting people up, Chucky-style. 

Then again, you never know. There's something eerie about the way this puppeteer manipulates his little people, created with such meticulous attention to detail that they seem alive even when they're not moving. When they do, the effect is startling. 

Backstage at the Roxy Theatre - where his latest show, Happy, opens tomorrow night - Burkett introduces Lucille, a chain-smoking old woman with nicotine-stained fingers. There's Happy himself, a good-natured war veteran decked out in his uniform, festooned with medals and even a little Legion pin. Burkett opens a drawer in an elaborate, revolving stage to reveal a Canadian soldier crumpled next to a naked, skeletal Holocaust survivor.

There are 44 marionettes in all. When Burkett pulls the strings, they seem to come alive as much as any character portrayed by a human actor. It's a good thing, because some of the puppet characters in Happy - the third in Burkett's trilogy of "memory" plays - are doomed to die. 

"You can't have a puppet die on stage unless somehow that thing has seemed alive to the audience first," Burkett says. "That's been my goal: The moment you're in the theatre with these characters you want to suspend disbelief and buy into the fact that they have a life." 

Happy, despite its title, is an exploration of death and how we deal with it. The story is set in a rooming house and revolves around Carla, a young women whose boyfriend suddenly drops dead. The five stages of her grief - denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance - make a dandy theatrical device, Burkett says. Each is accompanied by a vaudeville-style number in the surreal "Cabaret of Greyness." Denial, for example, is a torch song performed by Cleo Paine, Queen of Denial. 

Some of the characters are already dead, "held hostage in this house because of memory," Burkett says. "This third part of the trilogy is about the damage of memory, that if you don't actually say goodbye and let go, which is what Carla's trying to do throughout the whole show, you're trapped with your memories and you stop being alive." 

Happiness, he goes on, isn't something you're born with, nor it is a God-given right. 

"I think it is something that can be achieved, but I also think it takes a constant amount of maintenance." 

Needless to say, these are heavy themes you won't see explored on The Muppet Show. 

Some might ask why a grown man is still playing with puppets (though they don't ask it too loudly given Burkett's critical acclaim and success all over the world). He's been a puppeteer since he was a teen. It's the way he makes sense of the world, he says. 

"Maybe I wasn't one of those kids who plays well with others. I really was a loner. When I discovered puppetry, ah, here's a way to do all this stuff and I can do it all by myself. Over time I think that's part of the appeal, but with time and maturity, hopefully, the appeal is different. The world out there is crazy to me. I don't really understand it all the time. So by shrinking it, I can examine it better." 

Burkett has no plans to take his work to either TV or the big screen. The live theatre is where it lives. 

"I'm a junkie for 200 strangers in a dark room," he says. "I'm a vampire that way. I need to feed off people in the dark."

Happy plays through Dec. 10 at the Roxy Theatre.

Call 453-2440 for tickets.

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