Review: Burn

Rabbie Burns often feels like an elusive character - sinusoidally ephemeral, not with respect to content, but in prominence. You think you’ll get a better sense of him next time around. But if the last decade is anything to go by, turning up the frequency merely turns up the translucency but at the expense of ambiguity. Despite multiple versions of this man, the more you try to delineate the one and true Burns, the more frustratingly opaque he becomes.

Burn by Alan Cumming is a one-man tour-de-force; a packet of energy to burn the surface of the facade in the hope of laying bare the man beneath. Whether it succeeds depends entirely on the knowledge and relationship you have with Burns as you take your seat. Co-creator Cumming worked with choreographers Steven Hoggett and Vicki Manderson to project a vision of Burns as a national icon. The starting point was his letters and it is this correspondence together with increasing evidence of his melancholy - rather than his poems - which centres this presentation. The mood of the piece is foreshadowed with the sound of rain whereupon Cumming’s near post-gothic Burns makes his appearance. The set by Ana Ines Jabares-Pita is beautifully sparing tending towards monochromatic December tones. Burns begins by letting the audience into a secret: the provenance of his muse. Cumming’s impish portrayal is readily recognised for the misalignment with Burns-the-icon as we know him. However, it works well here because anyone who has ever been in the presence of their own muse will gratifyingly feel exultant, at least inwardly. And that is what is presented. It helps suppress any awareness that Cumming is few people’s idea of a romantic Burns. The dramaturgy of embodied absence is just beautiful. The internally lit aerated dress of his friend, Frances Dunlop, captures the warmth of honesty that existed between the two. Their correspondence captured by randomly attached letters. The suspended shoes lowered from the rafters cleverly imbues the presence of his many lovers. He addresses them one by one and sets forth sail pendulums to create ‘almost-agency’ where any of the women may well kick Burns’ face in anger at his infuriating infidelity. The trad-meets-modern soundscape by Anna Meredith and Matt Padden captures the drama of the brooding landscape so beloved by Burns, cleverly depicted here by Andrzej Goulding.

The melancholy is interspersed throughout and wonderfully depicted by the sense of sinking furniture. However, it sometimes loses prominence of equal-billing to the lighter tones of the piece. Leaving aside whether it was necessary or not, the dance choreography to this viewer was not entirely successfully realised. Cumming is not a dancer and this is apparent within the first few scenes of the play. But what he lacks in ability, he more than makes up for in propellant energy. I have no idea how central to the original piece dancing really was (the play is billed as “A solo dance-theatre piece”); however, it may have benefited from fewer such moves since it was abundantly clear the recorded audio in places was there to allow Cumming to catch his breath.

That said, this was an enchanting (if flawed) piece. And Cumming is to be heartily commended for pushing personal as well as artistic boundaries. Burn may have added yet another layer of translucent ambiguity to the myth of the man, but upon leaving the theatre after a standing ovation, Cumming had clearly captured the minds and hearts of the audience.

Burn runs Aug 31 - Sep 3 at Theatre Royal, Glasgow.