(Ben Brantley’s article appeared in The New York Times, 9/16/13.)
When was the last time you met a new play that was so smart it made your head spin? Not in years, huh? Well, get ready to reel, New York. Anne Washburn’s downright brilliant “Mr. Burns, a Post-Electric Play” has arrived to leave you dizzy with the scope and dazzle of its ideas.
This intoxicating and sobering vision of an American future, set during a day-after-tomorrow apocalypse, isn’t just some giddy head trip, either. It has depths of feeling to match its breadth of imagination. At the end of Steve Cosson’s vertiginous production, which opened on Sunday night at Playwrights Horizons, you’re likely to feel both exhausted and exhilarated from all the layers of time and thought you’ve traveled through.