Portland Playhouse Takes On 'The Simpsons' -- And The Apocalypse
b'What has four fingers, a yellow face, and is totally evil?
Montgomery Burns, of course.
But after twenty-six excellent years as America\\u2019s most laughably despicable super villain, Mr. Burns\\u2019 character is facing a big shakeup. Harry Shearer, the voice of Mr. Burns (as well as Ned Flanders, Principal Skinner, and others) announced this week that he\\u2019s leaving "The Simpsons."
It\\u2019s a sad day for Simpsons\\u2019 fans \\u2013 but the ripples go far beyond TV. Shearer\\u2019s portrayal of Mr. Burns was so iconic that it even played a role in the development of a play. It\\u2019s called \\u201cMr. Burns, A Post-Electric Play,\\u201d and you can find it onstage at Portland Playhouse this spring. Though the play draws its title from "The Simpsons," the show\\u2019s comedic namesake is outweighed by the attention it gives to darker subject matter.
The show starts with a group of friends around a campfire. They\\u2019re hanging out, drinking beers, and trying to remember the details of a Simpsons episode called Cape Feare. It\\u2019s utterly pedestrian \\u2013 until an unexpected noise in the background prompts the cast to draw guns and knives.
\\u201cThe conceit of the play,\\u201d says director Brian Weaver, \\u201cis that it\\u2019s a post-electric world.\\u201d
Post-electric and post-apocalyptic. Somehow, and the playwright leaves it to her audience to fill in the blanks, 99% of the human population has died off. With no one left to man the nuclear power plants, they\\u2019ve all melted down, making electricity a thing of the past. So humanity \\u2013 or what\\u2019s left of it anyway \\u2013 is back to good old-fashioned flint and tinder (and not the \\u2018swipe right\\u2019 kind). They make fires, and they do what humans have pretty much always done around the fire: they tell stories.
\\u201cIt\\u2019s a play about how we use stories,\\u201d says playwright Anne Washburn, \\u201chow we use stories to divert us, how we use stories to comfort us, how we use stories to explain things to us, how we use stories to talk about things which it\\u2019s too frightening to speak about directly.\\u201d
Read our full story: www.opb.org/radio/programs/state-of-wonder/article/portland-playhouse-takes-on-the-simpsons-and-the-apocalypse/'