"I've been directing for over 20 years," says theatre professor Karen Sabo, "and this play is a three-act play that is almost like two different plays."
Sabo joined KSMU Arts News on Friday ahead of performances of Mr. Burns this weekend.
By way of describing the plot, Sabo says, "In acts one and two, we are following the same group of survivors of a pandemic that's much worse than the pandemic we've all lived through. I think probably 90 percent of the population was wiped out, the electric grid went down, and nobody was taking care of the nuclear power plants. And so, society is just a mess. And just like humans have done since the beginning of humans, we see this group of survivors around a fire telling stories. And in this case, they're trying to reconstruct a certain episode of The Simpsons — the 'Cape Feare' episode."
Simpsons fans may remember that, as usual, Sideshow Bob is attempting to kill 10-year-old juvenile delinquent Bart Simpson, so the entire Simpson family goes into hiding on a houseboat. Clever (if insane) villain that he is, Sideshow Bob finds them. But, again as usual, Bart, through sheer chutzpah, prevails over Bob, in part by goading him into singing through his favorite Gilbert and Sulllivan operetta, H.M.S. Pinafore. (The very fact that I was able to recall, and recite, that episode synopsis live on the air should tell you that I probably watch way too many episodes of The Simpsons. )
Sabo said that act one of Mr. Burns consists of the group of survivors discussing that Simpsons episode around the campfire. Act two of the play joins this survivor group seven years later. "And they've realized they could make a living — which might just be food and shelter — by re-enacting episodes of The Simpsons. So now they're a professional theatre troupe." In addition to doing Simpsons episodes, the troupe makes up commercials, "because of course there's no TV any more," as well as music videos.
Act three takes place 75 years later, at what Karen Sabo calls "the dawn of a new civilization, rising from the ashes of the previous one. And the third act is a sung-through musical."
The acting troupe takes various elements of pop culture from the first two acts, such as pop songs like Britney Spears's "Toxic," and incorporates them into "this sort of Greek tragedy/grand opera-style telling of Bart (Simpson)'s survival as a sort of tragic hero, à la 'A Hero's Journey.' "
This may seem a bit of a stretch for anyone who knows Bart Simpson's character. On the other hand, elderly (and evil) Mr. Burns, who owns Springfield's nuclear power plant where Bart's father Homer Simpson works in the Simpsons TV series, has morphed into a super-villain who destroys civilization by sabotaging his own nuclear power plant. And knowing Montgomery Burns, that's not much of a stretch!
In fact, Sabo says, "in the third act Mr. Burns is sort of a mashup with Sideshow Bob and with radiation poisoning. So he kind of is a physical manifestation of this nuclear threat that people were afraid of in acts one and two." So, Mr. Burns is "pretty weird," as you may guess.
Sabo adds, "The interesting thing about this show is that all human societies have this dramatic impulse. Everyone has some kind of song and some kind of dance. We (would) tell stories about how to hunt that bear, and how to do things that keep us alive. Then it evolves into origin stories explaining where we all came from. So this show references a lot of that. And it's sort of about those tiny little aspects of pop culture that fill our lives, but also those eternal aspects that connect all humans."
After having what Sabo called a "fabulous" opening night ("I'm very proud of all the students"), Mr. Burns, written by Anne Washburn with musical score by Michael Friedman, is performed tonight and tomorrow night (Friday and Saturday, March 1 and 2) at 7:30 p.m., and Sunday March 3 at 2:30 p.m., in the Craig Hall Coger Theatre on the Missouri State campus. Tickets are $12 and $15; MSU students get a discount advance purchase price by showing their MSU ID. For information, call the MSU ticket office at 417-836-7678, or visit missouristatetix.com.
