Equinox Theater presents the world premiere of BURN, an epic-length narrative poem cast and staged dramatically. BURN will be performed Jan. 12-Feb. 4, Thursdays, Fridays & Saturdays at 7pm, at Gorilla Tango Theatre, 1919 N. Milwaukee Ave., Chicago 60647. Tickets are $15; to purchase tickets call 773-598-4549 or visit www.gorillatango.com.
The time has come to talk of many things; of smoke and thunder, tool and earth, of quarrymen and kings. In the original story Burn, the Nowhere Hotshots, a foul-mouthed, fearless crew of wildland firefighters, come home to find their lives in flames, their friends and families enslaved by some strange Queen. Can they save their loved ones? Can they even save themselves? Immersive and expansive in scale, this verse in play charges the vast landscape of story with the direct immediacy of live theater. "The narrative passages enlarge the potential spatial bounds of drama; the actors, living in this world, bring it to life. It isn't realism," says Storey. "It's suggestive, each gesture beginning a chord imagination explores." Burn is written in an unprecedented style of metrical verse, which shifts to reflect the immediate and thematic content of the piece. A whirling rhythm pulses through the poem, each actor contributing uniquely to the movements of the pattern."I try to introduce in this piece the character of the hotshot. I describe the gear, the garb, and the circumstances of their lives. But these are just tokens, incomplete and out of context, a code with no message, without experience to inform them. To get at the truth of these people, what I aim foremost to impart is the spirit in which they live. These actors wear their gear and garb, but it is the spirit with which they've approached their roles that brings us to Nowhere and sets our world ablaze."
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