The Burning Cauldron of Fiery Fire Off-Broadway Reviews

But aside from Milo’s off-handed confession there are no other hints that this is in any way a sex cult, and Thomas is easily shut down by others when he veers off into lecture mode. Mostly, this seems to be a group of well-meaning hippies muddling through life together. But muddling is not the stuff of most dramas — nor a sufficient reason to spend so much time with these well-intentioned strangers, especially after the play establishes some lofty stakes that wind up being squandered rather than fully developed.

The excellence in writing, performance and staging cited above applies to nearly all of The Burning Cauldron of Fiery Fire as it explores the human dynamics chafing within this commune. Then in the final 10 minutes or so of the drama, Washburn suddenly rockets the story off – by way of a trial-by-fire pageant the kids have enacted – into a brief, blazing world of allegory and symbolism the meaning of which baffled me completely. Several too-cute puppets suddenly emerge, too, but no lie, I don’t know what any of it signifies. Hopefully, colleagues with deeper insight will be able to clue me into what the fiery hell that ending was all about.

Still, Washburn’s play is a puzzle box that expands at the speed of your own engagement. In thinking about Ghazal, I realized that one of the newborn piglets, too, eats a poem of Peter’s that the children place in the pen. What does it mean? Is there a definitive answer to be had about this or any other character, or is our own mining of our minds the point of the journey? The Burning Cauldron of Fiery Fire is a slow burn, the kind of work that sticks to you and makes you jump in the middle of the night after you leave the theatre. Its more confusing moments uncoil and reveal themselves to you, if only you give it the time it deserves.

Directed by Steve Cosson, Washburn’s compatriot on her thrillingly mind-bending “Mr. Burns, a Post-Electric Play,” which ran Off Broadway in 2013, this is a quieter wow of a show. Onstage in its world premiere at the Vineyard Theater, in a co-production with the Civilians, featuring a cast of eight, it takes its time at unspooling the narrative — frustratingly at first, then tantalizingly, and building to a final third in which whimsy, horror and splendor exist side by side.