Throw me on the Burnpile and Light me Up A one-woman show well worth seeing

Throw me on the Burnpile and Light me Up  A one-woman show well worth seeing

By Joanna Brady

The concept of a show featuring only one performer certainly isn’t new. It’s a unique form of drama that evolved from tribal story-telling to Greek monologists, English minstrels, and French troubadours, to modern day Catskill stand up comedians, and occasionally, dramas on Broadway.

Anyone wanting to see it done well, should head over to the Key West Theater from now until January 14 for Throw me on the Burnpile and Light me Up, a new play by Lucy Alibar, performed by talented actress Dakota Mackey-McGee.

In this age of short attention spans when a church sermon can elicit snores when it exceeds fifteen or twenty minutes, it’s astonishing to see a theater audience riveted to their seats for ninety minutes—not a cough or a yawn, folks—watching a young actress work her magic.

The play opens with a 20ish woman in a formal suit, standing in obscurity. The lights come up and birdsong is heard. It’s morning. She changes her clothes to jean shorts and a shirt, then sheds her shoes. And suddenly her persona loses at least ten or fifteen years. She’s a kid again, and what you’re about to see are the snapshots from her memory.

The entire play takes place on the site of a watermelon patch in the Florida panhandle. The funky set could be out of a documentary on hoarding, with the most prominent ‘junk’ being stacks of boxes containing the files of doomed death row prisoners, awaiting destruction in the burn pile.

What follows is a monologue of her life as a child growing up in an eccentric family. Her father is a lawyer who represents prisoners pro bono, at great cost to his health. Even as a fourth grader, she helps him with his secretarial work, and he calls her “Boss.”

A whole raft of people take shape through the little girl’s descriptions. Although children in plays are not supposed to preach, the writer nevertheless works in a bit of nuanced social commentary about mentally challenged convicts and capital punishment. As the play winds down, Mackey-McGee delivers a fair bit of thought-provoking material without slipping out of her child-like role. Because she is a child, they’re recited in an ingenuous way that never drags us into the depths of melodrama—something the darker situations could easily do.

Instead, we come away with a vivid understanding of her atheistic father and her affection for him. We get to know some of the criminals he represents. We hear of school bullies and nasty teachers whom the main protagonist must contend with. And we become acquainted with a whole range of animals, including a randy goat who won’t leave their pig alone; the dogs; a bunch of cats that have to be swiped off the kitchen table before the family can eat; and the character of the land itself.

This is all interspersed with action by the protagonist on stage, running around, leaping, jumping, gesticulating, and demonstrating pseudo farting sounds with various body parts that elicit tee-hees from the audience.

Dakota Mackey-McGee’s performance is stellar. There is no intermission in this play. Memorizing a script that goes on for ninety minutes, not stopping for breath despite gymnastic antics—not even for a sip of water or a potty break—boggles the mind. Her talent is astonishing.

For tickets, call the Key West Theater, (917) 756-7536. Theater is located at 512 Eaton St.

Joanna Brady is a Key West writer, author of The Woman at the Light, a historical novel of Key West published by St. Martin’s Press..

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