KEY POINTS:
Puppeteer Ronnie Burkett's greatest manipulation is not the strings of his beautifully crafted marionettes but the emotions of his audience.
It is hard to imagine a sadder story than the one told in 10 Days on Earth.
Darrel is an intellectually handicapped man who lives with his
mother, Iris, and works as a shoeshine boy.
When Iris dies in her sleep, Darrel does not realise she is gone and so for 10 days tries to carry on with normal life just as she taught him.
Encompassing themes of a mother's love for her son, the diversity of family, the nature of loneliness and importance of hope, 10 Days on Earth is like one of those sad stories you read in the newspaper, then wish you hadn't.
Burkett has won many theatre awards in Canada and has been recognised for his services to the Canadian industry.
10 Days on Earth is his 10th production and it is touring the world.
As a showcase for his mastery of the medium, 10 Days on Earth has impressive elements. The puppets are well made and very expressive and life-like, and Burkett creates a whole city of different characters with ease, manipulating all of his creations perfectly.
But as with any work of art it is not just how well a story is told but what story is being told.
And for this reviewer, 10 Days on Earth was too trite and sentimental.
"Boo hiss, bad, cynical critic," I can hear fellow opening-night audience members say. "What about the cute puppy and the delicious little duck?"
But that is a case in point. As well as the main story of Darrel's struggle with his mother's death, a parallel story, a fable for adults, reinforces the play's themes and lessons. It comes in the form of Darrel's favourite childhood story of puppy Honey Dog and duckling Little Burp and their search for a home.
So over the two hours it felt as though each point was being made at least four times. By the end I was starting to feel as though those little marionettes were bashing me over the head with their human-sized lessons for life.
By focusing on the dispossessed, Ronnie Burkett wants to show us that there are other sorts of heroes in the world.
It is a worthy ambition, but one that needs to be realised with more subtlety and less sentimentality to really resonate.
