BURN THIS
Theatre: Ground Up
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In many ways, Pale seems to embody all the qualities the other characters in Wilson’s play seek to repress–uncompromisingly emotional, he almost appears to have leapt out of one of Anna’s dances. When he’s sad, he blubbers and bawls; when he’s angry, he punches and swears; when he’s tired, he curls up in a ball and snores contentedly; and when it’s time to make love–to paraphrase Matt Groening–he performs like a crazed weasel.
When Anna succumbs to the temptations Pale represents, at first it’s a disaster, destroying her cushy relationship with Burton. But once she’s able to shut both Burton and Pale out of her life, she hurls herself with unprecedented abandon into her work and makes the most successful dances of her career. For Burton, Anna’s rejection stimulates his most inspired script in years. At the close of the play, when Anna and Pale are reunited in a desperate embrace, Wilson suggests a happy ending from an emotional standpoint but a feeling of loss from the artistic. Anna’s deep, strong emotions apparently cannot be divided between Pale and dance. Just as Robby’s death led to Pale’s arrival, her relationship with Pale could well lead to the death of her art.
As the artist, or Underground Man, Loren Rubin demonstrates a hell of a lot of athletic ability, but his energy is not well spent. Under the direction of Prestininzi and Kate Hendrickson (who also plays Liza), Rubin is afforded the opportunity to writhe about, jump, pontificate, scream, and update Marcel Marceau’s classic pantomime of a man who eats hearts (Rubin excretes them as well). Rubin and Hendrickson throw themselves into their characters with admirable conviction, but rarely do they make The Hole seem anything more than a confused and pretentious exercise.
