Mr. Burns, a Post-Electric Play -- 8/10 -- Live theater is like live music. The visceral impact simply can't be beat. I'm not talking about flocking to bloated, pricey, touring productions of former middle-brow financial successes. You want Cats? Go get one at a shelter.
I'm talking about the daring and effervescent cultural brew bubbling up at sweat-equity subsidized small theaters (my area is lucky to have quite a few) or, in this instance, at a university (ditto on my area's luck in this regard.)
I could sprain my brain trying to explain and highlight this play to you folks, and, honestly, which few amongst you would give a flying eff? "Look! Over there! It's yet another Marvel cartoon opus! It's got an origin story!"
These pearls I'm casting! To what end? In case you aren't getting my drift, you (hey, I don't mean specifically
you, dear reader, you're not like the rest!) I'm referring to the collective OT cavalcade of avid mass-culture consumers.
^^^ In case you think otherwise, Leroy, I'm mostly making fun of MYSELF here. :colberticondesperatelyneededhere:
So, ummm, where was I? Oh, yeah, commenting on the ultimate futility of describing this play (and why I liked it) here. So, as a start, I'll just link
to come published reviews.
For those who won't deign to click, muahahahah, you can't escape my idiot enthusiasm:
"Anne Washburn’s hypnotic, sly and fiendishly insinuating
Mr. Burns, A Post-Electric Play...does the improbable: It makes the end of civilization seem like the perfect time to create glowing objects of wonder and beauty." -
Time Out New York, Read More
"Downright Brilliant. When was the last time you met a new play that was so smart it made your head spin? Get ready to reel, New York. Anne Washburn’s
Mr. Burns, a Post-Electric Play has arrived to leave you dizzy with the scope and dazzle of its ideas. With grand assurance and artistry, Ms. Washburn makes us appreciate anew the profound value of storytelling in and of itself, and makes a case for theater as the most glorious and durable storyteller of all. I look forward to remembering it for a long, long time." (Critic's Pick) —
The New York Times, Read More
"Get in line ASAP. This bizarre, funny, bleak, wonderful show is even better than its hype. Inventively directed by the Civilians’ Steve Cosson, it’s also one of the most affecting tributes to theater and tenacity you’re likely to see all year." —
New York Post, Read More
"...with songs of horror and resilience, Washburn reminds us of the ways stories survive and adapt with us, how their specifics and lessons change to the society that tells them, how their meaning is inconstant but our need for that meaning, whatever it happens to be at a given time, is pure and permanent...The stories we tell ourselves, the jokes we repeat, the TV in which we pickle—all that shapes us, the show insists, and none of it need be the dead end we might fear. From hell, Mr. Burns sends us to heaven." —
The Village Voice, Read More
"As she continually does in this big, bold play, Washburn suggests we choose best by choosing both, expanding our sense of play (and our accompanying sense of what theater can do) so that we might truthfully tell even the most painful stories from our collective past in a way that we can really hear them – thereby enabling the sort of catharsis that allows us to move on." -
The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel,
Read Mor
"
Mr. Burns subtly dramatises the process of cultural transmission in a mass media era. In Washburn's post-apocalyptic world, the works of Joseph Conrad, William Shakespeare and Tennessee Williams apparently survive only in episodes of The Simpsons punningly titled 'Bart of Darkness,' 'Much Apu about Nothing' and 'A Streetcar Named Marge.'" - The Bard to Bart: How Mr. Burns Challenges Our Common Culture -
The Guardian Read More