Indyweek: Burning Coal Breaks the Seal on Live Theater After COVID-19

A pensive, mostly wordless, social-justice work, it focuses, through scene-length pantomimes, on the self’s relationships with different groups, from peers and neighbors to mobs. Its characters find themselves isolated—either across clearly marked racial or gender divides or subtler ones—from crowds that can be curious, judgmental, or violent. 

An initially blithe Nikki Turner braves a gantlet when an accusing ensemble forces her back against a wall. A mob subjects Madi Viterio to the claws of the crab-pot mentality—if I can’t have it, neither can you. Brennan McDonell’s character must decide if he can conform to the expectations of a self-centered crowd. Two life-sized puppet figures outlined in gray plastic provide a mute Greek chorus.   

Physical distance transmutes into aesthetic distance as we take in these well-choreographed sights. It feels lonelier when we’re left on our own to experience the world of the work without the usual camaraderie with our neighbors, and the loneliness reinforces the odd-person-out dilemmas these characters face.