Little Dickens, Ronnie Burkett Theatre of Marionettes, Theatre Network. Photo supplied.

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca

“It’s the old puppeteer joke,” says Ronnie Burkett who has a lifetime supply of same. “Build a holiday show, and you know what you’re doing every December.”

To help support 12thnight.ca YEG theatre coverage, click here.

Which brings us to Little Dickens, opening Thursday at Theatre Network. In this festive Ronnie Burkett Theatre of Marionettes production , the entire company of The Daisy Theatre —  diminutive stringed thespians who are the only actors in the country who travel by crate — do their raunchy (for adults only) version of the season’s most celebrated story, Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.

Theatre Network audiences will recall that the Daisy Theatre company — some 56 marionettes and one rather tall marionettist strong — brought their Shakespearean show Little Willy to Theatre Network last season. And the Bard himself hung around, along with Jesus. Now, in this evergreen tale of last-minute redemption on Christmas Eve, an earlier piece by the Daisy artistes, the aging diva Esmé Massengill, who needs a shot of redemption more than most, takes on the star role of the frozen-hearted Scrooge. And the adorably aspirational little fairy Schnitzel gets to declare “God bless us, every one” as Tiny Tim.

Esmé Massengill as Scrooge in Little Dickens, Ronnie Burkett Theatre of Marionettes at Theatre Network. Photo supplied.

“One of the great things about Christmas Carol,” says the Alberta-born playwright/ actor/ director/ designer/ master marionettiste Burkett (who was awarded the 2024 Governor General’s Lifetime Achievement Award in the performing arts), “is that everybody knows it, but they don’t know it…. You don’t have to know every intricacy. It can be as simple as ‘miserly guy goes to bed, is visited by three ghosts, gets redeemed’. Done.”

“That’s why everyone adapts it…. You can use the book virtually verbatim: the dialogue is so rich, and the story just flows. You don’t have to be a great dramatist to do an adaptation.” Burkett pauses, and laughs,. “Hey, sorry, (t0) every artistic director who’s ever done one.” Not that Burkett, an inveterate improviser, sticks to a set script anyhow, as Daisy Theatre audiences across the country have discovered.

It’s the title that tickled him first. “‘Little Dickens’ came to me one night as I came out of the Grand Theatre (in London, Ont.)” after a show. “The title made me laugh,” he says. “And I just thought, that would be fun, to do Christmas Carol with the Daisy cast.” He wrote to Heather Redfern, executive director of the Cultch, later that night, ‘hey, I’ve got a really stupid idea for a one-off. What do you think?’ By the next afternoon, she’d booked it for a month-long run. Before we even opened, she’d booked it for the following year. And I’ve done it every Christmas since (with pandemic exceptions)” — at the Cultch twice, at Canadian Stage in Toronto, at the Centaur in Montreal.

In Vancouver, where the Daisy Theatre had played many times before, “there was an audience who knew the characters,” as Burkett says. And he had his doubts whether Little Dickens could ever work for an audience of Daisy novices. “I was proven wrong…. A brand new audience can come and get into it!”

Schnitzel as Tiny Tim, Little Dickens, Ronnie Burkett Theatre of Marionettes at Theatre Network. Photo supplied.

“Esmé is Scrooge but she’s Esmé. She doesn’t have a show on Christmas Eve, so she goes home miserable, and is visited by three spirits — gin, vodka, and brandy. Schnitzel is a born Tiny Tim….” The Lunkheads, the terrible brother and sister Canadian theatre duo who’ve been touring the prairies for decades, possibly centuries, play the charitable pair who visit Scrooge, to solicit money for work-starved actors. Snarls Esmé, “are there no dinner theatres?” Mrs. Edna Rural, a perpetual audience favourite, “has nothing to do with this story,” says Burkett. “But she comes out anyway, as a singing Christmas tree, and leads the audience in a community sing-along. Because that’s what you do in Turnip Corners, AB.”  Rosemary Focaccia, Esmé’s late showbiz duo partner, is the first ghost.

Since the Daisy Cabaret artistes appeared most recently in Little Willy, costume changes  (which means alternate versions of puppets) are de rigueur for Little Dickens. “I have to put little Santa hats on the band. I have to sew Rosemary’s chains back on.” And Esmé has “a couple of great new outfits — her loungewear, basically feather boas and glitter, and at the end, a new (redesigned) ‘redemption gown’! Last time out it was a little too tasteful.”

So after Little Dickens and Little Willy, what venerable author is ripe for plundering by the Daisy cast. “This is such a high-class enterprise, they only do the classics,” laughs Burkett. He doesn’t anticipate further inspirations of the Little... nature. “I don’t really have Little Jane Austen in me.”

Burkett’s Wonderful Joe, which premiered at Theatre Network last winter (inspired as he’s said, by his own cherished, very old, and now sadly late, dog Robbie), has continued to tour — October at Toronto’s St. Lawrence Center, with dates at New York’s Lincoln Center, the High Performance Rodeo in Calgary, and the Cultch to come in the New Year.

Meanwhile, at the end of this hard and chaotic year, there’s Little Dickens. “You know what? It’s a fun show to do,” he says. “I have friends who start talking Christmas in September, about how their Christmas shopping is all done’. And I was always ‘Oh, shut up!’”

“But this year, with the U.S. election, with climate change, with literally everything going on, I figure whatever people need to find a little joy in their life, I’m not going to criticize them. I’m quite delighted with all my Christmas-y friends. Because they’re … happy!”

PREVIEW

Little Dickens

Theatre: Ronnie Burkett Theatre of Marionettes at Theatre Network

Created and performed by: Ronnie Burkett (and members of The Daisy Theatre)

Music by: John Alcorn

Where: Roxy Theatre, 10708 124 St.

Running: Thursday through Dec. 22

Tickets: theatrenetwork.ca (for adults, +16 only)