Mr. Burns a post-electric play

With “Mr. Burns a post-electric play,” Cape Rep Theatre has produced a vastly entertaining and intellectually challenging piece of contemporary theater, fully using the refined talents of a highly capable company. The genre – post-apocalyptic speculative fiction – is heavily represented in movies and television, but rarely attempted on stage.

The play begins shortly after the end of civilization as we know it. A haggard group of refugees is trying to distract themselves from worry about loved ones lost, and the fear of what might be happening at nuclear power plants, by attempting to retell an episode of “The Simpsons.” While it’s difficult to reconstruct the episode of the long-running animated TV series, the retelling is helping them survive and is in itself fun for us to watch.

In its second scene, “Mr. Burns” jumps forward seven years, at which time these same characters (plus one) have developed their personal distraction about “The Simpsons” into an example of a burgeoning industry: entertainments based on the performance of nostalgia. Their specialty is cartoons and commercials. At the end of the segment, they rehearse for us an astonishingly well-acted and -sung production number, combining a myriad of styles from hip hop to sitcom, with some Gilbert and Sullivan and Peter Pan thrown in for good measure.

After intermission, the play jumps 75 years forward, to a future in which the small-time nostalgia entertainment show has become a full-blown musical entertainment. It’s part opera, part morality play, combining all the influences mentioned in the first two scenes, starting with a kind of Dies Irae (God's wrath) chant of nuclear-plant workers, then a morality opera focusing on good versus evil (Love versus Hate) with “Simpsons” character Mr. Burns as the Devil and Bart Simpson as the hero, on a voyage down the anthological river of the world.

The writing is eclectic to say the least, so what must hold this play together is the performances. Here the Cape Rep show shines, as each and every member of the cast is able to handle the mercurial changes of style demanded, from realism to cartoon kitsch to musical moments reminiscent of “Les Miserables.” In terms of the cast, Laura Baranik, Greg Cote, Elissa Levitt, Cary Scott, Alison Weller and Jo Brisbane all do superb jobs with the transformation of their multiple characters. But special mention has to go to Art Devine and Maura Hanlon for their extraordinary performances in this show. You have to see them to believe it.

This fine work is supported by an innovative series of settings designed by James P. Byrne, and mild to wild costumes by Holly Erin McCarthy. The direction by Philip Hayes is sure-handed, and uses the talents of the cast to the full. The choreography of Meredith Langton and musical direction of Jacob Yates help make “Mr. Burns” delightful, if enigmatic.

“Mr. Burns, a post-electric play” is fresh, new, disturbing, funny, and a fine example of what theater is up to in this part of the 21st century. Enjoy the ride into “a,” if not “the,” future.