REVIEW: Mr Burns, Almeida Theatre ✭✭✭

Mr Burns, Almeida Theatre. Photo: Tristram Kenton Mr Burns

Almeida Theatre

July 9 2014

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In the programme for Mr Burns, Anna Washburn's "post-electric" play now having its UK premiere at the Almeida Theatre, where he is Artistic Director, Rupert Goold says:  "but it is impossible not to see threads in the work that interests me; one of these is the intersection between high and low culture...Although on the surface it's playful and conceptual, it has very profound things to say about culture and society.” Washburn herself writes:  “Storytelling isn't how we entertain ourselves; it's how we understand ourselves and how we move forward. Our culture - national, family, peer, personal - is defined, not do much by what has happened to us, but how we remember it, and the story we create from that memory. And since we don't create stories from the air, since all stories, no matter how fanciful, are in some way constructed from our experiences, real or imagined - all storytelling is a remaking of our past, in order to create our future”

Those quotes succinctly sum up Mr Burns. Presented as high culture (because it's at the Almeida after all) it looks at a particular form of storytelling (the multi-award-winning, international low culture (high culture to some, no doubt) phenomenon that is the US television series The Simpsons and uses it as the basis for a struggling group of survivors from a nuclear catastrophe to sustain their spirit, remember and then remake their past and, by doing so, set in place their future and the future of humanity.

To say that the piece is challenging would possibly constitute the understatement of the century.

It is in three Acts, each about 40 minutes long.

The first Act presents a post-catastrophe world and the small base of a desperate group of apparently unrelated but terrified and bewildered survivors who, afraid of what might come from the all-consuming darkness around them, sit around a fire and try to remember whole episodes, including the exact dialogue, of The Simpsons while always keeping alert for intruders or other danger.

I do not think I have ever seen an entire episode of The Simpsons and wondered briefly whether that put me at a disadvantage. But, on reflection, No. You could substitute The Simpsons here for any form of popular culture or activity in which complete strangers have deep and abiding interests, prodigious memories and firm views: from Doctor Who or Adventure Island, through Test Cricket and World Cup matches, Broadway Musicals, ABBA, and Stephen King novels to the Bible or the Koran.

It's not about The Simpsons; it's about how humans will find the point of similarity and build on it to gather strength and confidence, to create society.

When a stranger stumbles into their midst, the group react violently, producing weapons. The sense of hideous, knife-edge brutality is thick, like fog, appearing instantly. It is not until the stranger is searched, processed and assimilated (by showing his interests and desires are similar too, if not the same as, theirs) that things start to relax and the cool possibility of acceptance breezes in, slowly, nudging the fog away.

Eventually, the group returns to the remembering-the-episode safety belt; and the dark, incomprehensible, outside world, never explained, but full of present danger and unknown threat watches on.

Act Two starts seven years later. The disparate group has formed into a kind of family; there are some pairs of lovers, some dissent about the way majority rule affects minority perspectives, a deal of improvised, inventive responses to need; and work and currency.

It seems that the little group met in Act One were not the only survivors who turned to The Simpsons for relaxation and comfort. Small communities across the ravaged land all did the same. Now these disparate groups operate independently, touring defined circuits, presenting performances of their recreations of individual Simpsons’ episodes. This is how they work and earn or barter for things they need/want. There is a rival group, the Shakespeares, but only scant mention is made of them.

Rehearsals are under way. Tensions are clear within the little community but, equally, there is a clear sense of love and commitment. They work well together, function as a team, but there are underlying issues about privacy and power. Most interestingly, we learn that there are loners in the outer world who trade in better lines of dialogue that can be used in their performances: it is not clear whether these are the real original lines or improvements/alterations/riffs, but they are valuable and create heightened interest. We also learn that some communities are banding together to create bigger communities with more episode recreations to perform – the capitalism versus community argument.

We see some of one of their episodes play; observe the way snatches of other cultural strands – pop music and Gilbert & Sullivan – are integrated into the Simpsons episode, evolving it into a kind of pastiche embellishment of their memory of the original.

Then, silently and terrifyingly, masked intruders arrive, heavily armed; the equivalent of terrorists. The little group dissolves in untrammelled fear, offers up all of its prized possessions in a frenzy, a fright of survival. But, with an ear-splitting crack of gunfire, one of the hapless women in the community is murdered in cold blood. As the shock sets in and the terrorists advance, the Act ends.

Rupert Goold’s notion of “on the surface it’s playful” seems absurd at this point. Act Two has been disturbing, unrelentingly grim and disorienting, grimly confronting (what would we do if the electricity was gone?) and then explosively, suddenly violent. As far from playful as is possible to imagine.

Each of the first two acts was introduced by a silent character carrying a board which introduced the Act and the author – establishing a kind of music-hall feel. But Act Three starts quite differently. The same character, in pseudo-religious tones and robes, indicates that Act Thee is by “Annon” and commences chanting.

There follows a completely bizarre, but strangely beguiling (to a point) musical performance that is part tribal ceremony and part dystopian Mystery play, with religious overtunes. Possibly. It is never clear whether Act Three, which is set 75 years further into the future than Act Two, is meant to be “real life”, as Acts One and Two were, or the kind of “entertainment” the society of that future appreciates/experiences.

Act Three gathers together roots from the earlier Acts. The central theme concerns the Simpson family being defeated, finally, by the evil Mr Burns – but the family are augmented with other cultural tropes and references to become a potpourri of the remnant of that long ago society which gave birth to the TV series. Everything is sung in Act Three and this musical feel gives an expectation of happiness which is completely at odds with the ghastly deeds which occur – necks snapped, babies murdered, women raped, all but Bart slaughtered one way or another.

But, somehow, against the odds, the spirit of humanity, represented by the mutated Bart, overcomes the insurmountable obstacles; the indomitable human spirit survives in the face of overwhelming despair. Mr Burns is cast off to hell and Bart the Saviour is safe.

Nothing happens in Act Three which is more or less offensive or disturbing than anything in any given episode of the Sopranos, Dexter, True Blood, Games of Thrones or any number of recent international television hits. But, somehow, onstage and in the flesh, it all seems macabre, unsettling, gratuitous and profoundly ludicrous; slightly rage-inducing even.

And one suspects that is the point.

When does cultural tribalism become destructive? Is it possible for religion to adapt from or be created out of disaster and, if so, in what form? Can the media desensitise people to activities and events to the extent that amorality and indifference becomes the prime directive? Is modern society so complacent that it cannot identify unacceptable behaviour? Does the pack mentality lead inevitably to terrorism and lone rogue elements? How does memory mutate into fact and what does it mean if it does? If we don’t know what we were and what we saw and heard, what can we know of what we will be and do?

These are the important questions raised, but not answered, sometimes just glossed over, by Mr Burns, in a form which is wholly disorienting and alienating – and yet, strangely compulsive. Looking back, I am surprised I did not leave after Act One. I still don’t know why I didn’t. But staying meant that the experience of Act One was transformed – its purpose was to set the scene for what was to come, to lull you into a sense of comfort and familiarity, so that the later Acts would be shattering, both in different ways.

Tom Scutt’s remarkable sets, combined with Philip Gladwell’s stunning use of lighting, make visceral the ravaged world in which we meet the characters/survivors. Robert Icke directs boldly, cleverly and to deliberate jarring effect. At times, proceedings are almost unbearable to watch – either because they are so trite it is nauseating, so prickly and confrontational as to be recognisable as real life, or because they are too horrific to endure. Icke masterfully produces a symphony of appalling realisation about the deep flaws in modern society.

Notions from Cape Fear are carefully interwoven with the events that unfold, partly because the Simpsons episode in the first Act is a spoof of the remake of that film, partly because Cape Fear is a modern touchstone for unspeakable horror and partly because the questions of line-crossing raised by the “finger sucking” scene in that film echo throughout the play, especially in Act Three.

The performances are uniformly terrific. Especially excellent were the wonderful Wunmi Mosaku, Jenna Russell, Justine Mitchell and Michael Shaeffer – and Demetri Goritas’ precise breakdown in Act Two is harrowing, almost unfeasibly precise.

Orlando Gough and Michael Henry provide an original, mood-enhancing and difficult to engage with score. It works spectacularly well.

There is a particular notion which has stuck with me – in Act Two, as they are rehearsing, Goritas suggests that a blob of oil be added to his face to give authenticity to the notion he has been riding under a car. The cast discuss and agree. Then the terrorists arrive. Were they watching for a long time? Because in Act three, the oil on the face seems part of some religious ritual, a mark of finality or respect. Is that because the terrorists won and history dances to their tune? Or it is because the way the day the terrorists came has morphed and transmuted into a different story, revered by the descendants of that small group who survived, if any did. Perhaps other onlookers told the tale?

I don’t think it is a great play, but it is as good a production of this play as it is ever likely to receive. It was not, however, playful or even funny. Nor would I say it was entertaining or unmissable.

But it is a unique experience at the theatre and it contains much to think about. Still, you endure the performance rather than watch or experience it – it is a fairly unique sort of theatrical venture.

It’s another bold and brave production for the Goold era of the Almeida, even if it is not quite what Goold says he thinks it is...