Burnering

The conventional wisdom about undergraduate playwrights depicts them as intense, ever-so-serious people with an axe to grind against their elders. And why not? Wonderful plays have been intense, ever-so-serious, and intolerant of the world around them. But there's another angle to the stereotype: student writers sometimes use their--our--intolerance as a crutch. They defend their flaws with a contemptuous moan and an "I'm sorry, but that's how I feel."

The problem with Ida Picker's Burnering, for my taste, is that its zeal outruns its craftsmanship. The concept is all there, maybe even a tentative first draft. But it has not yet been translated from thought into either English or stage talk, and the personal world it creates remains altogether too exclusive.

At Winthrop House, Burnering has been given an exciting, if not-so-well acted, production. Most House shows try to disguise what they are by converting dining rooms, junior common rooms et al. into ordinary theatres or close approximations thereof. Kay Bourne, the director of Burnering, uses a wood-panelled junior common wall for a backdrop, windows for entrances and exits, and a simple platform stage. Through imaginative, deliberate use of lighting, Miss Picker's hour long play is staged without interruption and with only the one set.

None of the seven cast members has made much of his character, in part because they lack definition in the text. Burnering deals with a father and two daughters moving away from each other as the daughters grow too old to give their father the devotion he so completely dotes on. Leastways I think that's what it deals with. Mr. Burnering is the father, a terribly conceited man whose conceit has been reinforced for years by his worshipful household. John Franchot, who plays him, conveys little more than this conceit and makes no visible attempt to suggest either the age or the world-weariness of his character.

Lindsay Crouse and Phoebe Russell, as Burnering's daughters get by with broad, fuzzy portrayals of troubled youth, and a good measure of charm. But the relationship between the two, and their differences, remain as unclear in the production as in the play.

I was on a different wave length from Miss Picker's Burnering, which may have been my fault, or hers, or in all probability neither. But Harvard is a place where playwrights don't have to cater to anyone's taste, and a slicker place for it.