Burn This

I even managed to catch a play a week ago when I was in LA. Admirable commitment? Or I have a problem? Hard to decide. But the point is, Lanford Wilson died a few weeks back, and when I was reading his obit, I realized that while I had read a few of his plays, I had never actually seen one. So when presented the opportunity to check out Burn This at the Mark Taper Forum, I jumped at it. And I really, really liked the play. Sadly, it all hung on a central performance that was lacking, so the audience had to fill in some blanks that probably wouldn't have been present if the main actor had been (or been directed to be) a more convincing and complete character.

Long story short: news has arrived that Anna's best friend Robbie has died. She lived in a loft with him, a fellow dancer who happened to be gay, and mutual friend Larry. Off to the funeral she goes where she learns that not only did no one in Robbie's family know he was gay, none of them had ever seen him dance, a fact that Anna finds almost unbearably tragic. A month after the funeral, Robbie's brother Pale shows up at the loft in the middle of the night to pick up his dead brother's belongings. And that's when shit gets really complicated.

Burn This is a play about the depths of our passions, the lengths we go to keep our secrets, and the moments when we allow all our walls to come crashing down. It feels as though it's meant to be performed at a fevered pitch, but as Anna, Zabryna Guevara treads so lightly over the emotions of the play, portraying Anna as lightly sad throughout the entire performance. It becomes up to the other three members of the cast to recalibrate and try to balance the deep sadness and incredible comedy of the piece. They do an admirable job, but you never lose sight of the fact that it seems to be a show without a center.

Brooks Ashmanskas gives a deliriously funny and camp performance as ad-man Larry. Ken Barnett is wonderful as love-interest Burton. And Adam Rothenberg is almost wonderful in the challenging role of Pale. It did make me wish I could go back in time and see the show with Joan Allen and John Malkovich who were in the original cast. Or not as far back to 2002 when it was Edward Norton and Catherine Keener. Nevertheless, I enjoyed myself and the play which is one of those things that makes me wish I had things in life I was as passionate about as the characters. Well...maybe I do. But there was still something intoxicating and a bit melancholy about the incredible dedication of dancers to the art of dance as explained in the show. And people's dedication to each other--revealing itself most strongly in times of duress. It was a beautiful play. And maybe just because I was in Los Angeles, I couldn't help but be surprised that no one had turned it into a movie yet!