Zane Williams
Survivors of a nuclear apocalypse keep culture alive by performing episodes from "The Simpsons." From left: Marcus Truschinski, Elyse Edelman, Georgina McKee, Jake Penner.
According to Mr. Burns, A Post-Electric Play, the world, as we know it, is ending in 2017. So, I’m not going to waste any time in telling you: With your last remaining days, go see this new Forward Theater production. It’s definitely the most unique show you’ll see all year, and what’s more, Forward Theater knocks it out of the post-apocalyptic, acid rain-soaked park.
Mr. Burns opens in the not-too-distant future, after unknown circumstances have thrust society into a dark dystopia; society lacks electrical power and is at the mercy of nuclear plant meltdowns a la Fukushima. In Act One, a group of survivors circle around a crackling fire in the woods. There’s a quiet sense of doom in the armed patrols that keep them safe, in their startled reactions to forest sounds. But there’s humor here, too, and a very human need for entertainment and distraction, even amid the hellfire and brimstone, which manifests as storytelling in the night.
Not just any storytelling.
Matt (Marcus Truschinski), Jenny (Georgina McKee), Sam (Jake Penner) and Maria (Elyse Edelman) do their best to recall an episode of The Simpsons in all its intertextual splendor. Remembering the show does not mean merely recollecting Homer, Marge, Bart and Lisa. It means recalling all the references contained in a single episode — everything from Night of the Hunter to Cape Fear to Do the Right Thing. The Simpsons is a postmodern show for a postmodern apocalypse, containing the funhouse mirrors of our culture.
That’s the genius of The Simpsons, but playwright Anne Washburn doesn’t leave it there. Her three-act play is about much more. As the decades proceed, theatrical performance develops. Along the way, Washburn brilliantly illuminates memory, pop culture and the fragments of seemingly insignificant ephemera that in the end, are harder to leave behind than the people we’ve lost. After all, Matt can get a new girlfriend, but how can he ever duplicate the taste and sensation of drinking an ice-cold Diet Coke?
What begins as a tense meditation evolves into an operatic spectacle by the third act. The play within the play collapses. Everything culminates in the lonesome, macabre mythology of a shattered past.
The cast, which also includes Marti Gobel, Jennifer Hedstrom, Michael Herold and Rana Roman is a breathtaking ensemble, one minute as relatable as your next-door neighbors, the next transcending into iconic representations. They sing, they dance, they play Bart Simpson. They are, of course, aided in their journey by the stellar Forward Theater production staff, which masterfully employs sound, lighting and sets.
Director (and artistic director) Jennifer Uphoff Gray is the visionary behind Mr. Burns, one of three amazing shows by female playwrights in Forward’s seventh season. What a thrill it is to surrender yourself to a Forward show where Gray and company seem to always up the ante, providing more thrilling theater for Madison audiences. I’d follow them anywhere, even after the apocalypse.
