Welcome to Curtain Call, our mostly queer take on the latest openings on Broadway and beyond.
The Rundown:
Scotland’s national poet Robert Burns and contemporary actor Alan Cumming converge in Burn, a dance theater piece co-created with acclaimed director-choreographer Steven Hoggett. The result is a decade-spanning dive into the poet’s trials and tribulations, from an impoverished childhood to multiple love affairs and a life-long struggle with what today’s researchers might diagnose as bipolar disorder. If not familiar with Burns’ life or work, the result is a muddled and somewhat academic bio-dance, lifted off the page by Cumming’s magnetic performance and a stellar design team.
No Tea, No Shade:
Alan Cumming is known to theater audiences for his Tony-winning reimagining of the Master of Ceremonies in the 1998 revival of Cabaret and to TV fans for his long run as Eli Gold on The Good Wife and, more recently, the light-on-his-toes Mayor Aloysius Menlove on Apple TV+’s Schmigadoon! But his love of theater and literature runs deep, and for years Cumming had wanted to perform in one more “dance heavy” play or musical, as noted in the program for Burn.
Related: Is a world of musical numbers Utopia? Or is it Hell on Earth?
How about we take this to the next level?
Our newsletter is like a refreshing cocktail (or mocktail) of LGBTQ+ entertainment and pop culture, served up with a side of eye-candy.
After attending a 2018 performance at the Joyce, New York City’s premiere dance venue, Cumming met the theatre’s leadership and struck up a conversation, setting into motion a creative collaboration that would span continents, weather a pandemic, and find its roots with additional input from two of Scotland’s foremost experts on Burns: Kirsteen McCue and Dr. Moira Hansen.
The creative team’s in-depth exploration of Burns’ life manifests in excerpts of his personal writings and published works as the audience weathers the storm — literally and metaphorically — of a life polarized between pleasure and pain.
Featuring a turbulent score by Anna Meredith, mood-shifting lighting by Tim Lutkin, simple but effective scenic design by Ana Inés Jabares-Pita, and dynamic video by Andrzej Goulding that you might expect to experience at the Museum of Modern Art, Burn has all of the elements of a memorable evening of theater. Yet, despite the quality of the craft, including a few magical bits courtesy of illusions consultant Kevin Quantum, Burn feels like a threesome where you’re the one sitting on the couch staring at the clock. But, at least someone is having a good time.
Of course, being a casual observer has its merits, too. And one can’t deny Cumming’s linguistic mastery, which is particularly joyful when delivered with a rich Scots dialect that lilts and lumbers as Burns’ words demand. Hoggett — known choreographically for an elevated, pedestrian style of movement that challenges weight and space — has been hugely successful with ensemble pieces like The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time and the cape-wielding Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. But with one body and a limited vocabulary of movement (think court dances, a bit of highland foot-stamping, and the intentionally limp hands of a ballet dancer), Burn might have been better served to lean more heavily into Burns’ words rather than their physical manifestation.
Related: A first lady fever dream scorches the stage at Chicago’s Steppenwolf
Let’s Have a Moment:
After a dramatic blackout and final tableau, Cumming walks to the lip of the stage, drink in hand, and sits. With the fourth wall cracked open, he gazes into the blackness, reciting an excerpt from a Burns poem made famous for the tune and time it’s usually recited:
One song more and I have done…
Should auld acquaintance be forgot and never brought to mind? Should auld acquaintance be forgot and auld lang syne?
For auld lang syne, my dears, for auld lang syne
We’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet, for auld lang syne
The memories we choose to hold on to, and those we let go — the loves and losses, hate and healing; the highs and lows and manic moments — it was all Burns fodder. And feast he did.
The Last Word:
“Maybe this is the perfect moment to offer up newness, to reconsider to — like Burns himself — still dare,” write Cumming and Hoggett in the program notes.
If anything, Burn is a labor love of love. If you’ve ever been to a cocktail party, you’ll likely have met a couple and thought, “Huh. I don’t get it, but good for them.” Cumming, Hoggett, and team are such an affair.
Burn plays at New York City’s Joyce Theater through September 25.
