Burning

"Ms. Lazarus’s clever adaptation is smoothly suited to our times; it’s so much easier for a verbally challenged suitor to fake it in the electronic age...Zachary Clarence serves partly as comic relief but gives a lusciously layered performance. Ms. Curtin is at her best when Cy is quiet and offhand, but she spends a lot of her time yelling and dutifully delivering exposition...Meanwhile, the romantic story’s psychology isn’t fully explored." Full Review

"A play filled with four letter words and so much non eloquence that Edmond Rostand would be rolling in his grave. Gone is the romantic poetry in lieu of a implausible lesbian plot line...The language is stilted, clunky, forced and as unromantic as you can get...This play takes on too many issues and doesn’t really complete its thoughts...The stage dwarfs this show and the direction by Eric Parness did not help." Full Review

"'Burning' is a very intimate play. Yet the Theatre at St. Clement’s almost does a disservice to the piece. The stage is vast...Director Eric Parness allowed his company to meander all over the space carelessly...It’s not a clean modern transfer, losing the charm of the original, but the way Lazarus crafts her script bounces between original and adapted ideas without truly marrying them. In the scope of the original story, the love story feels forced and pigeonholed." Full Review

"'Burning' should be seen for its innovations and its vital subject matter which is housed in an intriguing, if wobbly, reverse set-up of 'Cyrano.' The characters are at times powerful, while at others they are inelegantly drawn...A tendency toward heavy-handedness which dulls the effectiveness of the build-up at the end. Would Lazarus have configured Cy’s dialogue with more of the brilliance of sardonic irony and dripping, steely dark charm throughout, the end might have been truly dynamic." Full Review

"'Burning' gives Cyrano a gender-bending, American twist...There's no question that Catherine Curtin as Cy is the real stand-out. She melts into her character and is utterly convincing as the army sergeant whose promising career was cut short by being too outspoken about her own sexual orientation...It's the overall excellence of the acting that really makes this double bill of something old plus something new catch fire." Full Review