Burning Bluebeard
The new play by Jay Torrence concerns the Iroquois Theater fire of 1903, which killed more than 600 audience members and was deadliest single-building fire in American history.
The Neo-Futurarium
Chicago
(773) 275-5255
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
![https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516-320-80.jpg)
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
***
Few shows, if any, are able to “get under your skin before the first line is spoken,” said Nina Metz in the Chicago Tribune. This new play by Jay Torrence accomplishes the feat solely through smell: The unmistakable odor of something burning greets the audience as they enter the theater. The fact that the odor is obviously part of the production—Torrence’s show concerns the Iroquois Theater fire of 1903, the deadliest single-building fire in American history—makes the effect no less unnerving. Though Torrence never makes light of the tragedy, which killed more than 600 audience members, he “douses it in a wonderfully strange, sharply comic mood” by imagining six singed actors rising from their body bags to finish Mr. Bluebeard, the play they were performing when the fire started.
Alas, the ghostly actors never achieve their goal of completing the play, said Kris Vire in Time Out Chicago. Well into Burning Bluebeard, which features a mashup of John Lennon, Amy Winehouse, and “a creepy children’s-choir rendition of ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit,’” the terror of the original conflagration is re-created. The play isn’t uniformly macabre—“gags and dance numbers serve as a welcome balance” to the horror. The performers, from Ryan Walters as vaudevillian Eddie Foy to Molly Plunk as a “gangly” fairy queen, “convey real regret” during their doomed attempt to erase the tragedy by carrying on with the show. The play’s unlikely mix of “wistful, sidesplitting, and chill-inducing” moments lingers long after the fire burns out.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Create an account with the same email registered to your subscription to unlock access.
-
Big Tech's answer for AI-driven job loss: universal basic income
In The Spotlight A new study reveals the strengths and limitations
By Joel Mathis, The Week US Published
-
'I will not be silent' on Gaza, says Kamala Harris
Speed Read In a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Harris supported Israel's right to defend itself while expressing a desire to end Palestinian suffering
By Arion McNicoll, The Week UK Published
-
'How long can TikTok dominate as a social network?'
Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
By Justin Klawans, The Week US Published
-
If/Then
feature Tony-winning Idina Menzel “looks and sounds sensational” in a role tailored to her talents.
By The Week Staff Last updated
-
Rocky
feature It’s a wonder that this Rocky ever reaches the top of the steps.
By The Week Staff Last updated
-
Love and Information
feature Leave it to Caryl Churchill to create a play that “so ingeniously mirrors our age of the splintered attention span.”
By The Week Staff Last updated
-
The Bridges of Madison County
feature Jason Robert Brown’s “richly melodic” score is “one of Broadway’s best in the last decade.”
By The Week Staff Last updated
-
Outside Mullingar
feature John Patrick Shanley’s “charmer of a play” isn’t for cynics.
By The Week Staff Last updated
-
The Night Alive
feature Conor McPherson “has a singular gift for making the ordinary glow with an extra dimension.”
By The Week Staff Last updated
-
No Man’s Land
feature The futility of all conversation has been, paradoxically, the subject of “some of the best dialogue ever written.”
By The Week Staff Last updated
-
The Commons of Pensacola
feature Stage and screen actress Amanda Peet's playwriting debut is a “witty and affecting” domestic drama.
By The Week Staff Last updated