Theater Review: 'The Art of Burning' at Hartford Stage

by Nancy Sasso Janis

“The Art of Burning” has made its world premiere in Hartford. The new comedy written by Boston playwright Kate Snodgrass continues through March 26. The production is directed by Melia Bensussen, artistic director of the theater.

Snodgrass is the leader of Boston Playwrights’ Theatre for 35 years. She first worked with Bensussen on an earlier version of this Greek-inspired play at The Huntington’s Summer Workshops in Boston in 2019 under the title “Redux. “The Art of Burning” is a co-production with Huntington Theatre Company.

The play purportedly explores the love, rage and responsibility that go with marriage and parenting in America. Snodgrass has said, “I think the ills of the world could be solved if we were just better parents.”

The press release described the play: “Mid-negotiation, modernist painter Patricia changes the terms of her ‘conscious uncoupling’ with Jason.” She decides that she wants full custody of the couple’s 15-year-old daughter Beth. “Jason demands that their daughter decide, but mysteriously Beth didn’t show up for school. Has Patricia hidden her away to protect her, or is there something more sinister afoot?”

This is an accurate description of the beginning of the piece, but the action then goes on in so many different directions. There are flashbacks to what led up to the mediation appointment and scenes that explain how another couple figures into the story.

Looking at the drama through an ancient Greek lens helped me to understand at least some of Patricia’s actions. The character sees Euripides’ drama “Medea,” which centers on a woman who murders her children, the night before she is set to sign the divorce papers.

Adrianne Krstansky does her best with the role of Patricia and Rom Barkordar plays the husband she is divorcing. Both make their Hartford Stage debut, and both have appeared at The Huntington. The playwright told an interviewer that the character of Patricia is “making some difficult choices and learning things about herself–some hard, hard things.”

Yale University graduate Clio Contogenis tries hard to portray the daughter of the warring couple as a teenager. Michael Kaye plays Jason, the mediator in proceedings and Laura Latreille is cast as his wife Charlene. Vivia Font plays the role of Katya, a character that slides into the narrative.

Bensussen felt it necessary to give us permission to laugh in an interview in the program, but the laughter still felt uncomfortable. Rest assured that there is some onstage art and some off-stage burning. The audience is left to make sense of the discoveries that Patricia makes and what else may have been burned and I felt the weight of that responsibility.

Luciana Stecconi deserves endless praise for her scenic design. Essentially sleek in its lines and sparse in decoration, it is ever changing thanks to a grid on the floor. Lighting to match the scene shines through the spaces between the tiles, with touches on the back wall of the stage. It is as much a work of art at the work of the artist in the play.

Costumes by Kara Harmon are contemporary and fit the characters, especially that of Patricia. Lighting by Aja M. Jackson highlights the various scenes in tandem with the light up portions of the set. J. Jared Janas was in charge of the strong wig and hair design.

This is not really a play for young children to figure out. The play is presented without an intermission and runs about 90 minutes at the Tony Award-winning Hartford Stage at 50 Church Street in downtown Hartford. Tickets at HartfordStage.org/the-art-of-burning.

Nancy Sasso Janis, writing theatre reviews since 2012 as a way to support local venues, posts well over 100 reviews each year. In 2016, her membership in the Connecticut Critics Circle began and her contributions of theatrical reviews, previews, and audition notices are posted not only in the Naugatuck Patch but also on the Patch sites closest to the venue. She recently became a contributor to the Waterbury Republican-American newspaper. Her weekly column and theatre reviews appear in the Thursday Weekend section of the paper.

Follow the reviewer on her Facebook pages Nancy Sasso Janis: Theatre Reviewer and Connecticut Theatre Previews and on Twitter @nancysjanis417 Check out the NEW CCC Facebook page.