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Lanford Wilson's "Burn This" is overwhelmed by the melody of an absent artist, who is now receiving a perfectly tuned Broadway revival that presents incendiary performances of Adam Driver and Keri Russell, embodying two misplaced souls in a dance of powerful and passionate denial.
AIDS is never mentioned in this 1987 play, but the epidemic and the deep sorrow it has caused are deeply rooted in its DNA. The pain of loss and the need for connection – even between improbable lovers – are at the heart of this strange but attractive game, half-shiva and half-rom.
Although the cause of death of the brilliant dancer of the play, Robbie, is a pleasure boating accident, the mourning of a radiant life prematurely resonates with the epidemic that raged in New York at the time the play has been written. The effect of the death of Robbie (and his lover Dom) on Anna (Russell), her roommate and dance partner, and on Robbie's older brother, Jimmy, nicknamed Pale (Driver) – who looks a lot like to his brother / sister – cuts in the nuclei, immobilizing their actions and numbing their hearts. She lost her muse and he went astray.
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Larry (Brandon Uranowitz), a former dancer who unfortunately works as a graphic designer in an advertising agency, and Anna Lover, Burton (David Furr), a successful science fiction screenwriter, are also affected by the deaths. who aspires to write something more meaningful. The death of Robbie has shaken them all.
At the beginning of the play, Anna hit an emotional and creative wall, still in shock from the recent funeral, where it became clear that Robbie's separated family did not know – or did not want to know – the details of his personal life or professional.
Enter Pale, apparently on a mission to retrieve some of Robbie's possessions. He arrives unexpectedly, angrily and wired into the loft that Robbie, Anna and Larry shared (and designed with the downtown dinginess of the 80s and street decor by Derek McLane).
In this production, skilfully staged by director Michael Mayer, Driver plays Pale as a man-child with crazy mood swings, displaying brilliant glimmers of danger, absurdity, anguish and insight. He is grossly funny in his tirades in the Manhattan car park, the four-layer toilet paper and the hottest heating pipes, but he is also meticulous, to the crease and the cut of his trousers and his ad-hoc teapot. . He is apparently homophobic and misogynist, but also tender. He is hyper-alpha and yet he sobs uncontrollably when emotions win, which is often the case.
The cast is crucial to the success of this fascinating, flawed game (do not look too much into the details), especially in the main roles that force the public to believe that such different people can find refuge in the arms of the world. other.
Driver, a fascinating presence in "Girls" on television and in the latest "Star Wars" trilogy, lives up to the expectations of the presenter role originally played by John Malkovich. Driver is fascinating here, and the public will understand Anna's dilemma: want to leave him and need him.
In many ways, "Burn This" is Anna's play, but any actress would have trouble competing with the monologues, like tunes, that Wilson gives to Pale. Anna does not have such showcase moments, although Russell can also be an enchanter because it tells the story of being in a room filled with pinned moths. The metaphor is very good for Anna.
Russell, whose film credits are thin but proven on screen in "The Americans," creates a vivid yet less flashy performance. Nevertheless, she is a force in itself because she calls a quiet force under her fragility, a feeling of earth under her changing emotions and a fragile desire to continue despite the hole in her heart.
In a role that could easily have been stereotyped, Uranowitz presents the good touch of light with the jokes and wisdom he shares. Furr also displays fine nuances as a writer whose artistic reach can go beyond his commercial reach.
But it is the two stars who give the production of this imperfect game its brilliance, showing that the brightest fires burn from within.
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