Burn This at Broadway’s Hudson Theatre lacks one combustible

Burn This

In 1988 my boyfriend and I (now my husband, we celebrate 33 years together this very day) came to New York from Dallas to see my old friend Steve Barton in the play Phantom of the Opera. We were to be here for a week and knew we would spend as much time seeing theatre as we possibly could. One of the plays we knew we would see was the much praised Lanford Wilson piece Burn This because Mr. Wilson was the very favorite playwright of my spouse. I had a slight knowledge of the works of this great American playwright before walking into the Plymouth Theatre, but after leaving the theatre at the end of Burn This, I investigated everything he wrote. Because during those two plus hours in that theatre on 45th street in New York City something wonderful happened.

Burn This became my favorite play.

Since seeing Eric Roberts and Lisa Emery in the original production of Burn This (we missed the, by all accounts, electrifying John Malkovich and Joan Allen), I have seen many plays and I have loved many plays. And, still, I say that Burn This is my favorite play. I don’t actively seek out productions of this play because I always fear it will taint my memory of that first visit to this story, actively choosing to skip the 2002 off-Broadway production because of my distaste for Catherine Keener. When she was replaced by Elisabeth Shue, whom I admire greatly, I would gladly have gone but Edward Norton had been replaced by Peter Sarsgaard, whom I dislike even more than Catherine Keener. So why did I make the choice to see the current Broadway production of Burn This? Is it because of Keri Russell, whose work I have appreciated, lo, these many years? No, though she was certainly a big part of the appeal. Is it because of Adam Driver? No. I don’t care for Adam Driver in the movies so I was more than slightly let down when he was chosen to play Pale. Is it because of David Furr, Tony Award nominee for Noises Off? No, though I did really like him in Noises Off and The Importance of Being Earnest.

I went to see Burn This to see Brandon Uranowitz.

Yes, I love Burn This. But I own a copy of the play and can read it any time. I have strong memories of when I saw the play in 1988. I have strong memories of the Dallas premiere that occurred a few years later. I have had my time with Burn This, and it is enough to last me the rest of my days. But I have not had my time with Brandon Uranowitz. I’ve seen almost everything he has done on the New York stage and with each performance I grow to appreciate him more. And when I read that Burn This was being produced with Adam Driver playing Pale I knew I would pass on it, in spite of my great respect for Keri Russell. All of that went out the window when I saw that Mr. Uranowitz was playing Larry, a role that remains glorified in my mind due to the unforgettable performance by Lou Liberatore, a 1987 Tony nominee for this work. If anyone in New York theater right now was made to play Larry, it is Brandon Uranowitz. I wasn’t about to miss this production.

And I am so happy I didn’t.

When I entered the Hudson Theatre and saw Derek McLane’s set I got misty eyed. It evoked, entirely, the mood of the play and the memory of the original production. The set is beautiful and functional and it tells the true story of what it looks like to live in a New York City loft apartment, for the benefit of out of towners who have never been in one or who haven’t seen one represented on film and it is gorgeously highlighted, throughout the performance, by slick, chic mood lighting created by Natasha Katz. The sound design was set up to play music from the 80s all day so we were treated to the 80s classic ‘Voices Carry’ as we settled into our seats and, indeed, the Playbill listed the year as 1987. As I watched the play I noticed that there was no real reference, either historical or pop cultural, to the year, so it could have easily been left abstract. Perhaps it is in the contract of the playwright’s estate that the year remain the same as the year the play was first created, perhaps it was director Michael Mayer’s decision to note the year. It’s anyone’s guess; but note the year, they did, and we the audience were treated to sound designer David Van Tieghem’s favorite 80s playlist. Nobody in the audience near me seemed to mind, as many sang along to the songs, all throughout the show, an interesting way to bond your audience to your story. Good thing I like 80s music. Good thing it wasn’t distracting from the ample talent up on the stage.

I always worry when a movie star comes to Broadway. What if they aren’t good? What if they are a movie actor you really like and you have to watch them be bad? What if you read reviews in which they are declared to be bad and you get sympathy pangs for your favorite film and television actor? It’s happened before to such great stars as Uma Thurman and Julia Roberts, and when the play started I was worried that it would happen with Keri Russell. As the first scene progressed I wondered if she was equal to the task. She seemed to be working very hard with her enunciation and the story her physicality was telling to audience. At times she seemed uncomfortable in her surroundings and her verbiage. However, by the end of that first scene I knew that she was rising to the occasion; and I that is when I realized how hard it is to start the play Burn This.

Burn This tells the story of a woman who lives with two gay men, one a dancer and one an ad executive. The dancer, Robbie, is her best friend and dance partner and before the play even begins he has contributed his part to the storyline: he has died in a boating accident. Throughout the next two acts we see how his death affects his muse, Anna, their witty roomie, Larry, her lover, Burton, and Pale, the loose cannon older brother of the deceased. When the play begins, the biggest piece of action is already over and the survivors are left to deal with the aftermath. Nothing as big as a boating accident leading to death happens during the play, only talk, talk, talk. And maybe a fist fight. But the big news of Burn This is that Robbie is horrifically and tragically dead. Before even one line is spoken. How difficult is it to open a play in a state of grief and communicate that sense of loss to an audience who, moments before, were laughing and Instagramming pictures of the set of the play? It’s impossible. With the help of her colleagues Brandon Uranowitz (Larry the funny gay guy) and David Furr (Burton the athletic lover), Miss Russell managed to bring the audience into the dire gloom of losing your bestie and partner in creation, and by the time Act 1 Scene 2 hit, she had us in the palm of her hand. From that moment to her final moments in the play, the star of television’s The Americans and the film Waitress showed her acting chops with a natural fluidity to her dialog, a relaxed ease in her surroundings and a catalog of facial expression that could draw in even the most cynical of audience members. It is an elegant Broadway debut.

As for Misters Furr and Uranowitz, their Broadway debuts came a while ago. And their mastery is showing. Mr. Furr took a part that is usually rather forgettable and breathed new life into it. I honestly don’t remember Burton from the original production or from the Dallas premiere of the play that I caught in the 90s. David Furr, though, gave the man a sexiness, a pathos, a soul, an integrity and a heart that I cannot help but remember. He turned the character with seemingly the least to say into a person to listen to, a person the audience usually dismisses for the more showy characters in the play. For example, I never remembered that it is actually Burton who says the title of the play, casually in a moment of dialog in Act Two. I never noticed that before, but I did today. That’s not nothing, and I’m grateful to him for opening my eyes and ears. I never felt much for Burton before but today he had my sympathy and he had my attention.

And Mr. Uranowitz, the purpose for my even being in the Hudson, gave me everything I wanted in the play and in the role. He stepped out of the shadow in my mind created by Lou Liberatore and made a new version of Larry, all his own. He had the quips and the barbs but he had the wistfulness and the wisdom. He was funny but not bitchy, he was worldly but not weary. He connected to the other actors on the stage and he connected with the audience. In this role that could, by this point in the history of the performing arts, be called by rote there is every opportunity to become a stereotype. Brandon Uranowitz delivers what the audience needs from the character without falling prey to the stereotype. And it has to be said: he looks great in his tighty whities. And speaking of his costumes, I will admit I was a bit disappointed in the way Clint Ramos dressed Mr. Uranowitz. I was alive in the 80s, I was the age of these people in the 80s, and I did not dress the way that Larry is dressed in this play. I feel like Mr. Ramos used Larry as a joke, dressing him in unbecoming pajama pants, bulky cable knit sweaters tucked into pleated tweed trousers, and even a Flashdance sweatshirt, all of which de-sexed him and made him the quirky gay roomate, the eunuch that audiences laugh at but don’t envision having sex. That is a mentality from the past. The play may be set in 1987 but the audience is in 2019 and we know that men who look like this have sex: dressing them up in clown pants and shoulder pads doesn’t distract us from the visual image in our heads of him performing sex acts on other men. All of the characters in this play are hot, young, sexy and active. The costuming for this character did not further the idea that he was a sexual creature.

Burn This

And now we come to the lamentable performance of Adam Driver. I have admitted that I don’t find him interesting on film, but I went into the Hudson Theatre with high hopes and an open mind, believing that he would prove me wrong and convert me. All Mr. Driver did, though, was show me what happens when the most famous movie star in the world is allowed to be on stage with theatre artists of a professional nature. The other three actors were in one play, using the same acting style to tell a story to a big room of people while maintaining a certain degree of reality. Mr. Driver made his entrance screaming a scream that continued for his entire first scene until every line he said was one long unintelligible wail. I could understand nothing he said and I was using an assistive listening device. When, in Act One, Scene Three, he stopped screaming I heard that deep voice for which he has become famous, but only for a moment or two because he resorted to a strange speech pattern that was baffling. Sometimes his very peculiar accent and high pitched squeal sounded like he was a Muppet with mashed potatoes in his mouth. Other times his acting reminded me of an untrained actor in a high school play with mashed potatoes in his mouth. And the physical ticks and odd vocal choices he made oftentimes made me question if his backstory for Pale included some kind of developmental delays. With mashed potatoes in his mouth. He had a tendency toward inappropriate physical humor at times when other actors were on stage talking, drawing laughs from the audience that covered important dialog. This was a truculent, erratic and totally confusing performance, a completely unbecoming character without warmth, sympathy or any other redeeming qualities to draw an audience to them. I could not fathom why Anna would want Pale, and Anna has to WANT Pale. There was nothing attractive about him in spirit, in attitude, in behavior or in physicality.

Perhaps that is why there was an absolute absence of chemistry between Mr. Driver and Miss Russell. There was also a slight lack of chemistry between Miss Russell and Mr. Furr but there was certainly more chemistry there than there was between the two leads. Storytelling, theatrical or cinematic, depends solely on the relationships; and the relationships here existed between Anna and Larry, and Larry and Burton. Indeed the only sexual chemistry on stage was between the homosexual Larry and the hyper-heterosexual Burton. Pale was out in the cold, screaming at the rain, while the other characters stood to one side, watching and wondering how this unlikely pas de quatre could ever come together as one. It was a company of three actors doing one play and one actor doing a solo show. In 39 years of Broadway theatre-going, the performance by Adam Driver is the most incoherent and disconcerted one I have ever seen.

And STILL he made me laugh out loud and cry one tear during his final scene. STILL I am happy that I went to the theatre. Because no matter what, there is that beautiful prose by Lanford Wilson. No matter what is happening on that stage, no matter who is saying it, that prose rings true, clear and exquisite, even if dated by the passage of two decades. No matter what my personal feelings about Adam Driver’s version of Pale, the audience was with him. That was my great glee in my trip to the theatre. These strangers to me were getting to meet Pale for the first time ever, they were getting to hear his outrageous exclamations and laugh at his scurrilous behaviors. These people were being exposed to one of the great plays, one of the great playwrights, one of the great characters of the American theatre, and they were laughing and gasping and clutching their pearls.

And I just can’t walk out of a theatre unhappy when that has happened in a room full of people.

Burn This runs approximately 2 hours and 30 minutes, including one 15-minute intermission, and is recommended for ages 12+.

Burn This has a strictly limited engagement through July 14 only.

Broadway.com

 
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