A daredevil playwright, whose adventurous dramas typically challenge audiences in matters of story and style, Anne Washburn probably is known best for Mr. Burns, a Post-Electric Play. That’s her wonderfully weird tale set in a dystopian near-future without a power grid when campfire recollections of a particular episode of The Simpsons warp through successive generations into mythological ritual.
Washburn’s latest work, The Burning Cauldron of Fiery Fire, similarly concludes in a ritual. This play, too, studies a dystopian world – but a smaller, gentler situation of today – in the doings of a struggling commune of two dozen folks, including kids, working on their collective farm located in the Pacific Northwest.
Keeping the specifics hazy on these evidently nice people striving to be free of the “umbilical cord of a corrupt civilization,” Washburn gradually reveals the situation and story in colorful drips and drabs that do not always follow strict chronology. The play begins with a verbal choral by the characters rhythmically uttering words such as smoke, fog, deer, thistles, pumpkins; they repeat their chorale several times later in the drama with other descriptive words, like hemlock and coastal pine, suggesting a peaceful New Age-y existence in remote American environs.
Trouble soon arises in their communal paradise: Peter, one among the collective, suddenly dies – spoiler: it’s not murder – and they hold a respectful cremation ceremony. The next day sees the adults hash out whether to re-burn or simply bury Peter’s only partly-consumed corpse, being ecologically mindful of wild animals, the tinder-dry hills and lack of fuel. And what then to do with Peter’s stuff? The group’s ultra-sensitive reasoning process yields a subtly funny scene. Glints of humor glisten through much of the absorbing two-act play, which takes a serious turn when Will arrives, seeking his missing brother Peter.
Informed that Peter unexpectedly left for parts unknown months ago, Will stays overnight before going on his way. Will’s amiable presence proves unsettling and not only because he resembles the dead man. Fearing the kids might blurt out the truth, they are coached to lie, which angers one adult. “Are we no better than the rest of this country?” she wonders. “Have we become a typical American family, full of dark secrets?” Yet this woman harbors secrets of her own, not incidentally, as do others in the quasi-spiritual collective.
The Burning Cauldron of Fiery Fire opened on Sunday at Vineyard Theatre in a fine co-production with The Civilians, whose founding artistic director, Steve Cosson, staged this world premiere. Eight actors capably depict two, sometimes three characters each, including youngsters. (An amusing though overlong sequence observes the little kids rescuing a favorite piglet from being butchered as bacon.)
Cosson, who directed the original Mr. Burns in 2012, sensitively navigates the shifting moods in Washburn’s layered, mildly impressionist drama, and so does the acting ensemble, whose performances are lovingly detailed and meshed. They are aptly dressed by costume designer Emily Rebholz for working on the farm. Scenic designer Andrew Boyce provides a single, handsome, rustic setting done in mellow brown shades. It easily accommodates the play’s flow of mostly interior scenes as punctuated for stark drama or misty atmosphere by lighting designer Amith Chandrashaker. Credited for “sound design & composition,” Ryan Gamblin delivers a rich, usually discreet, aural background involving folk tunes, birdsong, thunderstorms and environmental effects.
The excellence in writing, performance and staging cited above applies to nearly all of The Burning Cauldron of Fiery Fire as it explores the human dynamics chafing within this commune. Or as somebody on kitchen duty gripes, “Everyone wants to start a fire, but no one wants to clear the ashes out in the morning.” Then in the final 10 minutes or so of the drama, Washburn suddenly rockets the story off – by way of a trial-by-fire pageant the kids have enacted – into a brief, blazing world of allegory and symbolism the meaning of which baffled me completely. Several too-cute puppets suddenly emerge, too, but no lie, I don’t know what any of it signifies. Hopefully, colleagues with deeper insight will be able to clue me into what the fiery hell that ending was all about.
The Burning Cauldron of Fiery Fire opened November 9, 2025, at the Vineyard Theater and runs through December 7. Tickets and information: vineyardtheatre.org
