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Passion can strike at any time. And when two violently opposed individuals are involved, the results can be tumultuous. Anna, a dancer who is mourning the loss of her dance partner Robbie, encounters Robbie's brother Pale when he bursts into her loft in the middle of the night to retrieve his brother's belongings. Dangerous, sexy, raw, and demanding, Pale interrupts the course of Anna's calm existence and leads her into an explosive encounter from which there is no turning back in this modern classic.
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HUNTINGTON THEATRE COMPANY PRESENTS BURN THIS
(BOSTON) - The Huntington Theatre Company presents Lanford Wilson's searing, turbulent drama, Burn This, at the B.U. Theatre Nov. 12 through Dec. 12, 2004. The play, updated by the author for a successful 2002 run in New York City, centers on the aftershocks of a dancer's tragic death, and the emotional turmoil it inflicts on his friends and family.
The Huntington's production includes a mix of new-to-Boston faces and returning favorites. Burn This, directed by Susan Fenichell, stars Nat DeWolf (from the Huntington's Betty's Summer Vacation) as Larry, Brian Hutchison as Burton, Anne Torsiglieri (from the Huntington's Marty) as Anna, and film and television actor Michael T. Weiss as Pale.
Burn This has set design by James Noone, costume design by Candice Donnelly, lighting design by Mary Louise Geiger and sound design by Drew Levy (who recently designed sound for Sonia Flew). The production's fight director is Paul Savas.
"With this spectacular cast, Susan at the helm, and Lanford's fresh revisions to the play, I expect our production of Burn This will be a highlight of the season," says Nicholas Martin, the Huntington's Norma Jean Calderwood Artistic Director. |
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About Burn This
Set in New York City, Burn This centers on Anna, a dancer-turned-choreographer, whose roommate and dance partner Robbie has been killed during a boating excursion. The death sets off Lanford Wilson's drama about loss, passion, and betrayal. Anna's roommate Larry, and her boyfriend, Burton, share her grief for Robbie, but it is the explosive, volatile grief of Robbie's older brother, Pale, that illuminates the real tragedy of this untimely death.
After Robbie's wake and funeral, an unannounced Pale bursts into Anna and Larry's apartment in a cocaine- and alcohol-fueled frenzy. No one is safe from his corrosive verbal attacks as he rages against New York City and the pretensions of urban loft-dwellers. An Italian Catholic restaurateur with undisguised contempt for the art world, Pale cannot reconcile himself to his brother's homosexuality or success as a dancer. And though Pale and Anna argue violently about Robbie's lifestyle, a sense of mutual loss drives them toward an unexpected intimacy. Their desperation ignites a charged cycle of desire and regret that haunts Anna as she begins to establish herself in New York's cutthroat dance scene.
Throughout the play, the characters question how they will forge their commitments to art and to love. Burton, a commercially successful screenwriter, struggles to write a story about the "distances between people." Larry, a gay advertising executive, confronts the shallowness that pervades his professional and personal relationships. And Anna, whether as a choreographer or as Pale's erstwhile lover, hunts for meaning in "bodies, space, sculptural mass, distance relationships." Burton advises Anna and Larry that the only path to creative fulfillment is to "make it personal, tell the truth, and then write 'Burn this' on it."
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