Lanford Wilson, one of America`s premier dramatists, has written a new play and he thinks it`s his best yet. That`s nothing new. Whenever he finishes a play he thinks it`s his best yet.
But this time there`s a difference–and he`s slightly concerned.
”I`m incredibly vulnerable in this one,” Wilson said, ”because it`s the only play I ever thought was wonderful. I never thought my plays were going to be successes. I thought `Talley`s Folly` was going to be a massive failure. I thought they were going to cream me because I had written a romantic comedy and everyone was expecting the last great American tragedy. Well, `Burn This` is another romantic comedy, but it`s an adult romantic comedy.”
Adult means, in part at least, that the language in ”Burn This” is, in Wilson`s own words, ”outrageous, incredibly vulgar. It`s sort of life as we know it, not tempered or censored for the stage. Everyone says what they`re thinking, but at the same time it`s a very warm comedy.”
Wilson and his long-time director, Marshall W. Mason, have assembled an excellent cast to speak this tangy literature. Joan Allen and John Malkovich join with Jonathan Hogan and Lou Liberatore in the four-character play.
Gut language is a departure for Wilson at this stage of his career. His later plays–”Fifth of July,” ”Angels Fall” and ”Talley,” the last of which won a Pulitzer Prize despite Wilson`s fears of disaster–are gentle, poetic yet incisive probings of human frailty. They are set in places like Lebanon, Mo., and rural New Mexico.
”Burn,” on the other hand, harks back in tone to early plays like
”Balm in Gilead,” a disturbing look into the seedy lives of street people that enjoyed a successful revival in 1984 with Malkovich directing. ”Burn”
is, as Wilson put it, ”more city than I`ve done in recent years.”
The drama is set in a ”gigantic” loft on the Bowery. Its inhabitants are a 32-year-old dancer (Allen) who has just given up her career, and a much younger man (Liberatore) who is a gay layout artist.
Said Wilson: ”It took everything I had not to make a joke about that.”
There had been a third roommate, a very promising gay ballet dancer who was killed in a boating accident with his lover. The woman, who quit the professional stage because it left no room for her personal life, has a boy friend (Hogan) who is a successful screenwriter.
They all get along great until the dead roommate`s brother (Malkovich)
intrudes on the scene. He manages a restaurant in New Jersey and lives a wholly different lifestyle.
”He works 18 hours a day,” said Wilson, ”and every time we see him he`s drunk or high on nine things. He`s flying and he`s angry and he`s crazy and he`s strange. He`s also very much in love with this girl and that, eventually, is our love story.”
Wilson said ”Burn” will begin life at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles. Rehearsals start in December with a January opening planned. ”We`ll do three weeks at the Taper to get the feel of the play, then come back to the Circle Repertory about March 1. Actually, it`s booked right on through to Broadway, unless (here`s that eternal playwright fear again) the New York critics despise it. But we have a producer.”
Aside from trying to trim about 15 minutes from the first act of
”Burn,” Squire Wilson is using the time at his Suffolk County retreat to start work on a film version of ”Talley`s Folly.” It`s his first attempt at an original screenplay, though he has done some script doctoring. When he`s through, Wilson will doubtless call it the best screen work he`s ever done.
