Things that make you go d’oh: the Unicorn’s Mr. Burns

December 9, 2015

Liz Cook,

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As a lover of The Simpsons in its heyday, I had high hopes for Anne Washburn’s Mr. Burns, a Post-Electric Play. But as I left the theater, I couldn’t help recalling something the artist Ed Ruscha once said: Good art should make you say, “Huh? Wow!” — not the reverse.

The Unicorn’s dizzyingly creative production, co-produced with UMKC Theatre and directed by Theodore Swetz, nails the “wow!” part. But Washburn’s calculated brilliance may leave audiences scratching their heads.

The first of three acts takes place in a “very near future” in which electrical failure and nuclear meltdown have decimated the U.S. population, leaving survivors scrambling to outpace fallout. With no Netflix to binge, entertainment returns to its most primitive form: storytelling around the fire.

Slightly less primitive: The stories swapped are primarily old episodes of The Simpsons.

In the opening scene, wounded nomads Jenny (Maya Jackson), Matt (Tim Scott) and Maria (Manon Halliburton) dig deep into their memories of life before, trying to reassemble the plot of “Cape Feare,” in which Bart Simpson is stalked by his nemesis, Sideshow Bob. But the overlong sequence sucks the tension out of an inherently dramatic situation. Washburn devotes pages to tortured recollection, ums and uhs in tedious verisimilitude, and the scene accomplishes little dramatically beyond belaboring the conceit.

When an outsider (Matthew A. King) sneaks up on the group, the dramatic engine revs in earnest. Scarce resources make every stranger a potential threat, and the standoff sings in Swetz’s and the Unicorn’s care.

The dystopian genre may well have reached peak saturation, and some of the plot’s contrivances will feel familiar to audiences. It’s hard not to compare Mr. Burns with, for example, Station Eleven, Emily St. John Mandel’s prize-winning novel about a dystopian future in which survivors seek solace in comic books and Shakespeare. Still, a few of Washburn’s choices feel fresh: The Simpsons, for one. Yes, the show has long been an easy cultural touchstone, but its charms seem suited to the post-developed world. One can imagine finding comfort in its sense of humor and irreverence, in its plucky spirit, which insists that even troublemakers like Bart and oafs like Homer deserve happy endings.

Score another head-slapping of course to another of Washburn’s apocalyptic innovations: Her survivors keep notebooks, recording the names and ages of everyone they meet on the road, a Rolodex of the living to cross-reference against strangers. But the haunting notebooks are abandoned almost as quickly as they’re introduced. Act 2 jumps ahead seven years to show us the characters settling back into capitalism as usual. The group has formed a theatrical troupe around their Simpsons habit (led by the indomitable Mariem S. Diaz), and rival theater companies have sprung up around them, each with a different repertoire of half-remembered episodes.

Here, Washburn neglects still-nascent relationships between characters to focus on the economics of the apocalypse. The troupe debates the exchange rate of a can of Diet Coke (two lithium batteries) and calculates which ’90s pop anthems will inspire the most nostalgic zeal. They sprinkle their performances with “commercials,” extended fantasies in which actors simulate once-banal luxuries such as baths, television and glasses of Chablis.

If Act 2 gives short-shrift to characterization, Act 3 abandons it entirely, jumping another 75 years into a future in which The Simpsons has been ascribed the significance of a creation myth. Nameless performers in yellow robes perform “Cape Feare” as an Expressionist drama. The character of Sideshow Bob has been transmuted, through a dismal game of telephone, to Mr. Burns. And Ricky Martin’s “Livin’ La Vida Loca” is now a ceremonial chant.

The result is entertaining, if bewildering. The Unicorn’s cast tries valiantly to knit Washburn’s competing concerns into a coherent whole. Halliburton is a standout all the way through, finding urgency in Act 1’s recollections, sincerity in Act 2’s sneering critiques, and a truly uninhibited bout of glossolalia in Act 3. Matthew Rapport is similarly strong as Sideshow Bob–cum–Mr. Burns, and Jessalyn Kincaid makes a heroic Act 3 Bart, her voice pitched with the right kind of impish innocence.

The production design is similarly inventive. Costume designers Sarah M. Oliver and Paige K. Beltowski lead the charge, using such everyday objects as yellow-plastic colanders to create resourceful post-apocalyptic costumes. Act 3 allows the pair to graduate to spindly, balloon-animal headdresses and crocheted overlays, a pairing that looks as ridiculous as it feels inevitable. Even Act 1’s street clothes are detailed and appropriately apocalypse-aged (though Halliburton’s pristine boots could do with a little road wear). Scenic designer Trevor Frederiksen constructs an ingenious near-cathedral from recycled plastic bottles. And Nicole Jaja’s lights brush the stage with a pulsing, otherworldly energy.

But even the combined creativity of the Unicorn and UMKC Theatre can’t keep Mr. Burns from feeling like a theater class’s senior project. Washburn’s script is long on ideas and short on sustained characterization. It’s whip-smart stuff, scorching at times, yet the latter two acts are colder than a nuclear winter, all irony and cultural critique and no beating human heart.

Stories are, at their core, about human journeys and connections. But for a play ostensibly about the importance of storytelling, Mr. Burns is far too cagey about telling its own.