The Australian, Melbourne (Australia) October 25, 2002

Melbourne Festival theatre reviews
BY LEE CHRISTOFIS

Seeing three shows about the persecuted and marginalised in quick succession, each one informing our reception of the others, reveals Robyn Archer's wisdom in devoting her first Melbourne Festival to multifarious theatre forms.

Tinka's New Dress is a triumph of magical imaginings where 37 meticulously crafted marionettes live in a totalitarian state, the Common Good, which shrinks art to propaganda and its opponents to waste. Conceived and actualised (including astonishing vocal technique) by Canadian Ronnie Burkett, Tinka finds timely metaphors in the Czech puppet shows pushed underground by the Nazis. Here libertarians and artists such as puppeteer Carl, sister Tinka and outrageous drag queen Morag risk their lives by doing shows satirising or defying state edicts.

Into this painful darkness Burkett injects artistic disobedience and irrepressible irreverence – sending up Melbourne, Archer, other festival shows and divas – and editorialises anarchically on his sexual proclivities. The lovable Burkett and his puppets are as vital as food, sex and humour to enduring the crap that just keeps hitting the world. They make you weep and laugh and give you hope.

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