Theatre Reviews Limited: "Burners"

3rd Annual New York International Fringe Festival
**Fringe Excellence Awards given out August 29th**

"Burners"
by Ken Urban
At the Kraine Theatre

Reviewed by David Roberts for Theatre Reviews Limited

Daytime television meets Marsha Norman's "‘night, Mother" meets David Mamet in Ken Urban's "Burners." From daytime television there is a significant amount of simulated, homogenized (and mostly silly) sex. From "‘night, Mother" there is epilepsy, loneliness, and suicide. From Mamet an abundance of talk laced with too many unfinished sentences. Unfortunately, "Burners" has neither the character development of the soaps nor the depth of Norman's richly dark play, nor the gutsiness of Mamet's works.

What "Burners" does have is an interesting idea waiting for further development by its obviously talented playwright. Katherine (Kelly George) is an executive who has risen above the glass ceiling but is stuck in a dead-end marriage with a loser husband named Roger (Daniel J. Scott) and a neglected (hence) stuttering daughter named Sharon (Ruth Darcy) who runs away from home. Katherine decides to commit suicide and places an ad in the paper seeking a suitable and equally suicidal partner to "check out with." Answering the ad is Edgar (Justin Romeo) an artist (who happens to be gay) having his own marital problems with Neil (Ryan Rumage) and suffering from bouts of focal seizures.

Katherine and Edgar share stories about their "first time" and their compatibility as suicide partners. Then the flashbacks begin and the problems with the play begin. For what we learn about Katherine and Edgar does not help us care about them or about their planned premature demise in front of the open, unlighted gas jets in the kitchen. Katherine and Roger were married in 1974 and Katherine does her best to "make Roger in her image." Not a formula for a successful marriage. There is nothing likeable about any of the characters in "Burners" and this is quite problematic. When, after rehearsing much of her married life for Edgar (and the audience), Katherine tells Edgar, "You've heard enough of my soap opera," no one in the audience could possibly disagree! In fact, the audience is probably ready to put Katherine and Edgar out of their misery even more prematurely than the carbon monoxide could.

In case you need proof, here are some of the characters' lines: After telling Edgar she was "not the mothering type," Katherine admits she would have liked to have had a son to she could have "raised him gay." Edgar, during a conversation with his boyfriend and his father, utters "You share ... your penis with someone you love." Dr. Ruth meets Mr. Rogers.

Whether Katherine and Edgar ever commit suicide is "left open" for the audience to decide, though the audience sees what looks like dead people being discovered at least two times. There are some interesting twists and turns in "Burners" but there is a long wait between payoffs. Most of the cast struggles mightily with the script (with varying degrees of success) and do their best to be real characters. There just isn't enough meat here for their poor bones so sometimes they raise their voices to try to make some sense of the people they are portraying. They want to express the angst and loneliness and meaninglessness their characters feel but there's little in any of the characters to care about so their feelings matter little. Kudos to Justin Romeo for attempting to make Edgar's pain and his search for meaning real. Zack Roth is simply too young to play Edgar's father (or the father of anyone else in this young cast). Kelly George and Daniel J. Scott successfully portray a wife and husband who clearly deserve one another.

Faring best, perhaps, is Edgar's boyfriend Neil (Ryan Rumage), a charming young playwright who is working on a musical about Jim Jones and the "cultification of society." Crazy idea, but Rumage manages to pull it off with style. His character is also the only one in the theatre to fully understand what playwright Ken Urban is trying to accomplish. In the second (and this time "true") version of Edgar's past, Neil says, "Things are getting clear." Good work, Neil. Please, now tell the rest of us.

Reviewed on Sunday, August 22, 1999

"BURNERS"

Written and directed by Ken Urban. Assistant director, Samantha J. Schechtman; stage manager, Stephanie Nichols; sound design by Amy Wagner; slide design by Ann Curran; technical director, Joseph Tapp. Presented by The Cabaret Theatre at The Kraine Theatre, 85 East 4th Street between 2nd and 3rd (Bowery) Avenues. In August at the New York International Fringe Festival on the following dates: Wednesday the 25th at 9:00 p.m.; Saturday the 28th at 4:00 p.m. All tickets are $11.00. For information and reservations visit http://www.fringenyc.org

WITH: Megan Butler (Camilia/Officer), Ruth Darcy (Sharon/Manager), Kelly George (Katherine), Alexis Lukas (Deborah/Art Critic), Justin Romeo (Edgar), Zack Roth (Earl/Executive), Ryan Rumage (Neil/Neil), and Daniel J. Scott (Roger).