During Scottish actor Alan Cumming’s one-man dance theater show about Scottish poet Robert Burns, a piece of paper in Cumming’s hand spontaneously caught fire. He takes beats and jokes. teeth It’s called a “burn”.
Momentary wink humor, but like paper, it’s gone in an instant. That flare or flicker is a symbol of a work that continues to pour theatrical fuel into a flame that continues to light. The atmosphere is too sticky.
“Burn,” which premiered in New York at the Joyce Theater on Tuesday, is a show that seems unlikely in concept and doesn’t really work. It was conceived by Cumming and choreographer Steven Hoggett as a bizarre kind of vanity project, and Cumming, 57, wanted to do something physical while she still could, but she wanted to be a legendary human. It sheds light on the inner life of a little-known character as the 18th-century man who is still revered as Scotland’s national poet.
Somewhere along the way, I decided that I could best reveal Burns in his letters, which make up the bulk of the script. One of his advantages of this approach is that the poet can tell his biography in his own acrimonious language. It tells not only the official story (rural poverty to literary fame) but also the dirty part.
“I took the opportunity of the dry horse litter to give her bones the very bone marrow-thundering thunder,” he says. “Oh, what a peacemaker is Guide Willie Willie Purple/Pintle/Prick!”
Shortly after Cumming said that, there was a flash of light and Cumming fell to the ground. Was Burns smitten by God for his sinful ways? Not in this show. On the wall behind the stage, the word “hypochondria” changes to “hypomania.” This is a symptom of bipolar disorder that Cumming and Hogget and the scholars they consulted believe Burns had. This diagnosis is primarily what they are trying to portray theatrically.
they make an effort Produced by Joyce, Edinburgh International Festival and Scottish National Theater, the show boasts a large creative team with impressive achievements on Broadway and the West End. There are moments of fancy digital projection and stage magic, like when Cumming steps away from his quill and it automatically continues to write.
Many women in Burns’ life are represented by shoes hanging from the rigging. The most daring choice is music. Scottish composer Anna Meredith’s track can accompany an artful rave, with hints of bagpipes quickly splitting into fragmented loops. But when combined with her strobe lights and digital imagery, Meredith’s genre-bending creativity ends up being cheesy.
And all the sweeping, anachronistic sounds and technical magic seem to overcompensate for a fundamental weakness: the dance part of this dance theater production. Many of the moves (also choreographed by Vicki Manderson) are just mimicking words Cumming has already said. Once, when he bitterly mocks his own obsession with patrons, imitation heightens the expression. Otherwise it’s superfluous. Here and there, Cumming strikes poses that convey character and meaning—hands on hips in front of Highland scenery—but extended dance sequences gesticulating farm work and Highland style are limp. No poetry, no burns.
That core flaw causes Cumming to struggle, oscillating between goofy and maudlin. Burns’ story is that of a man and an artist who struggles with poverty and the constraints of adequacy. So it seems trapped within a medicalized notion of individuality, the decision to put on a dance show. he miscasts himself.
“Burned“
through Sunday at the Joyce Theater. joyce.org.