Burn This – A Review in Thirst, Energy and Hilarity
When @leofgyth offered me to go with her and a group of friends to see Adam Driver star in Burn This on Broadway I was ecstatic. Go see our fave in person and hang out with some fellow Adam Stans/Reylos? Hell yes. Also, there be spoilers ahead so BEWARE.
So, in preparation I bought a copy of the play. I read if four times before seeing it Saturday night. Mostly because Jimmy, aka Pale – Adam’s character has dizzying monologues that rail and race along a rollercoaster of emotion that on the page make them hard to follow. I knew though, instinctually that Adam would pull off the dizzying effect to great degree.
The house music was all 80s great new wave hits that set the right tone. From Manic Monday to Voices Carry. I was immediately transported to a time when I was too young to remember much aside from the music blaring from my mom’s record player.
Now I don’t want to spend this entire review thirsting after Adam. Because believe me, no one who goes into that play comes out not thirsting to some degree. I’ll get to him soon. But first I really want to talk about the other three characters in the play. What they brought to it. How they fared up against Adam’s intensity and undeniable energy.
First up, let’s talk about Burton. He’s Anna’s off and on boyfriend. He’s a screenwriter, rich, successful, born with a silver spoon in his mouth. He’s enamored with Anna despite the fact that they seem more square peg-round hole as a pairing. He’s funny, however. His entire monologue about how there are no good movies in Hollywood and how everything gets remade every ten years is hilariously accurate even 32 years after the initial Broadway run and just goes to show that not much has changed three decades.
Burton is flawed. Entitled. Spoiled. Not used to understanding the financial struggles that Anna and Larry have gone through. But he has a good heart despite himself. He’s played by David Furr, who is almost as tall as Adam, and pretty fit too. He’s a big guy with a teddy bear like quality about him that makes you feel comfortable in his proximity. He brings that sort of energy to Burton and you kind of feel for the guy that he is the supporting lover who gets passed over and not the romantic lead. His interaction with Pale is limited to one scene of spectacular inebriated fighting and revelation. His interactions with Anna are soft, and bring out his insecurity as a writer, and the rambling disjointed way he describes his ideas hit home for a writer like myself.
Let’s move on to Larry. Oh Larry. He’s gay. A marketing exec. And dear fucking GOD he is the hidden gem of this play. I went in expecting excellent performances from Keri and Adam and they no doubt delivered. Larry consistently stole scenes from every fucking cast member, Adam included. He was so funny and his timing and delivery were perfection. From him flopping himself down on the sofa whilst playfully calling Anna a slut for fucking Pale. To him singing the song Pale sings to her to tease her about hearing the entire tryst. To his reaction to Burton’s story about getting blown by some rando guy in the snow in his twenties. To the call back to that moment with something along the lines of “Hey Burton, look, it’s snowing, wanna find a dark doorway?” He’s cheeky and enigmatic and loves Anna with a brotherly protectiveness that is so lovely. Brandon Uranowitz is the actor who plays him and he’s a delightful surprise. When I read the play I was paying far more attention to Pale and Anna’s connection than to the wise cracking gay man she lives with. Definitely pay attention to him if you happen to be going to the play. He’s so wonderful.
Now let’s dish on Ms. Russell. At first blush you can tell she is really starting to get her bearings as a stage actress. To be frank, stage acting is very different than screen acting. You have to emote more, you have to be slightly over the top to ensure that even the person in the last row can feel the intensity of emotion you’re displaying. Whereas on a screen it’s easier to be subtle and still have the same effect. What bits of her acting style have changed since she’s started the play have shown through and shine through a beautifully nuanced performance that not even two unscripted improvisations by Adam Driver could completely throw her out of character for more than a split second to give him a “Are you fucking kidding me?” look a chuckle and then move on. She gives emotion and vulnerability as well as a gigantic emotional brick wall around herself as Anna as both Pale and Burton try to bust it down. With only Pale who is the one to break through.
She walks herself through grief. Anger at Robbie – her dance partner who dies suddenly and is the emotional center of the play as she tries to move from being a dancer to a choreographer. Desperation for connection – with Burton – only to shove him away when his enthusiasm and compassion become too much. To her frightened exchange with Pale upon their first scene together to how he busts down her walls and makes her reach out to comfort him through his pain of losing his younger brother. She holds her own against Adam’s explosive performance. She has her own moments that are just as gut wrenching but in her you feel the tight containment of her discipline as a dancer that beautifully juxtaposes Pale’s explosive grief.
I knew going to see Adam would be an experience. Having seen his performances on the big screen and the small screen I knew this was a role he would both love and find so much meat to sink his acting chops into. This is Adam at his finest. He’s an emotional trainwreck throughout the play. In his first scene he steals the audiences attention, commanding it as he paces like a caged animal, ranting about parking and pot holes, and Ray the bartender who he decked out for not shutting up to full on the floor, full body sobs with real tears and screams of grief. His dialogue is dizzying and circular, coming back around several times with the same questions. He plays inebriated, drunk, coke high and belligerent with an authenticity and veracity that makes it almost too real. Pale has no filter. He thinks it he says it. Bluntly. Boldly. It’s the exact kind of snark and sass that Adam is becoming famous for a la Adam Sackler in Girls and the explosive anger of Sackler and his even more famous character Kylo Ren/Ben Solo of the Star Wars franchise. His physicality and range of emotions in his opening scene is enough to give the audience emotional whiplash.
His acting ability in person is even more powerful than it is on the screen. You feel the emotions he sends out as a wave of energy that engulfs and enslaves the room. We laugh at his snark and quick wit, but the audience grows quiet as Pale begins to work through his intense grief. There’s a humanness to Adam’s style that makes you believe that he is not just some actor playing a part but that he IS Pale in those moments. That type of immersive acting is something I personally will never forget and am so grateful for seeing in person.
Physically, I didn’t think Adam could get more attractive than I had seen in photos, tv and movies. Oh boy was I wrong. Every review I read. Every interview with female costars I’ve read. All of that previous knowledge did nothing to prepare me for the reality of seeing him in person. The minute you hear his voice, yelling just offstage for Anna to let him in at five in the morning, the hair on the back of your neck stands up because you know an entrance™ is about to be made.
Bursting on stage he gets uproarious applause from the audience as he launches into his initial rant about pot holes, and finding parking in a city that’s dying of crotch rot. He’s so good at going from 0-100 on the emotional scale at the drop of a hat that it’s startling to witness in the same room.
From him taking off his pants to not wrinkle them your eyes immediately go to the stark contrast of his pale legs against the black socks, shirt and underwear. Or to him gliding out of Anna’s bedroom on his second visit there in her purple floral silk kimono (that he ripped the sleeve of rather accidentally) with it open to reveal more pale skin and tiny euro black briefs that made the entire audience audibly inhale. Adam’s costumes throughout the play go from sleek suits to the fun comical use of a woman’s robe to a leather bomber, jeans and shitkickers. His stage presence and physical form is a veritable feast for the eyes as his voice, intonations and blue collar diction is just as entertaining. He improvs as I mentioned before, once when he did a little twirl that seemed like it was extremely on the fly, an amused smirk on his face as Keri almost broke out laughing. And again, when they’re on the sofa together and he did something that surprised her but I can’t quite pinpoint what that was having only seen the play once.
All in all this is a play where nothing happens and everything happens. Four people processing grief in varying degrees. From Larry and Anna’s personal grief as Robbie’s found family, to Pale’s outrageous self-destructive spiral and Burton’s tangential disconnected sympathy. It makes Burn This and Lanford Wilson’s prose jump from page to stage with veracity and life that I think would make the playwright proud.
