‘Burn This’ Dances With Loss and Love’s Renewing Power

Lanford Wilson’s “Burn This” is a moody, delicate piece of writing that in many ways, behaves more like a chamber quartet--or a dance--than a play. Constructed of themes and variations on loss, grief and the renewing power of love, it speaks directly to the heart.

That’s a difficult thing to get right, but all of the elements align in a revival by Michaela Productions, in rented space at the Odyssey Theatre. What’s more, the time is again right for this piece. When introduced at the Mark Taper Forum in 1987, the play indirectly addressed the sadness that had descended on America with the AIDS crisis. Today, it quietly speaks to the losses of Sept. 11.

The death that propels the play’s action is nothing so pervasive or catastrophic. It’s just the everyday variety, which sends every life it touches into a tailspin.

A gifted young dancer and his lover have been killed in a boating accident--a loss that hits his roommate and dance collaborator Anna (Christina Carlisi) particularly hard. She is surrounded by kind, sensitive men--her other roommate, Larry (David Brouwer), and her rich, too-perfect boyfriend, Burton (Blake Boyd)--who try to joke or comfort away her pain. But it isn’t until the dead dancer’s older brother, Pale (Dean Biasucci), bursts into Anna’s life that she connects with someone whose emotions are as raw as her own.

Director Jessica Kubzansky and her actors infuse each passage with subtle shades of meaning. In a wonderfully appropriate touch, this production incorporates bits of modern dance to illustrate Anna’s feelings and to allow the audience to see, not just hear about, the piece she has created in response to what has happened. The choreography--which suggests togetherness and separation, attraction and repulsion--is by Kitty McNamee.

The action feels right at home in Yael Pardess’ design for a tall-windowed loft space in lower Manhattan, while Jeremy Pivnick’s lighting infuses the sky beyond those windows with the pinkish-blue dawn of new hope.

Daryl H. Miller

“Burn This,” Odyssey Theatre, 2055 S. Sepulveda Blvd., West L.A. Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 3 p.m. Ends March 17. $20. (310) 477-2055. Running time: 2 hours, 35 minutes.

‘RUNT’ Confronts Fear in Taut, Moving Monologue

When you walk into a room where no one knows you, what pulls your head up--assurance? Or fear?

Posing that litmus test of inner strength and admitting that most of his life has been driven by the latter, writer-actor Michael Phillip Edwards proceeds to explore and do battle with that fear in his taut, harrowing monologue, “RUNT, a Hero’s Journey” at the L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center’s Davidson/Valentini Theatre (venue notwithstanding, the show is not gay-themed).

The self-styled runt in a lineage of strong black men of “self-made fortunes--and cursed to the bone,” Edwards was inspired by the birth of his son to craft this unsparing personal history in an attempt to avoid repeating deep-seated patterns of psychological abuse by confronting them.

In a meticulous characterization, Edwards conjures up the bullying presence of his father, a Jamaican immigrant for whom weakness was the only unforgivable sin. Snapshots of their tortured relationship from Edwards’ early childhood through adulthood explore telling facets of child-rearing through intimidation and the sobering consequences. Sharply focused staging by Kimberly Elise ensures presentational mechanics (notably Sandy Lee’s evocative lighting shifts and Drew Dalzell’s design) and support the material without intruding on it.

At what point does self-exploration stop being psychotherapy and become theater? Where all too many solo shows fall short of that transformation, Edwards’ skillful writing and compelling performance consistently invest the specifics of his narrative with universal resonance.

Whether invoking the Oedipal terrors of a 5-year-old forced to choose between his separated parents, or the humiliation of a college student at a financial low point tempted with money at the cost of his personal integrity, Edwards’ quest for manhood often achieves the mythic stature the play’s subtitle implies.

Most of all, Edwards impresses with the strength of his commitment. The thick drops of sweat he leaves behind on the stage testify that nothing has been held back.

Philip Brandes

“RUNT, a Hero’s Journey,” Davidson/Valentini Theatre, 1125 N. McCadden Place, Hollywood. Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 7 p.m. Ends March 31. $20. (323) 860-7300. Running time: 1 hour, 15 minutes.