Mr. Burns Journal

Yukun Yuan

Maria Enriquez

Theater 410

28 August 2017

Mr. Burns Journal

Mr. Burns' story sets up in the near future. In the forest, there are 5 survivors, Matt, Jenny, Maria, Colleen and Sam, and four of them except Colleen are talking about the plot in Simpsons' episode two of season five. The episode is about Bart Simpson getting a threaten letter from Bob who wants to kill Bart. The Simpsons then try to deal with Bob and Bart finally send Bob back to Jail again. When the four people are discussing what the first half of the episode really is about, a sound brings everyone's attention. A guy called Gibson appears. Later on the five people find out that Gibson is also a survivor from the catastrophic nuclear plant failure. Gibson tells everyone else what he has experienced through his way in the outside world. Then they begin to go through each one's list of loved one or people who they had met in order to find out more information of those people in the list. Unfortunately, there are none of people they know in common. Five of them except Colleen continue the conversation, and Maria tells a story of man who is trying to save the nuclear plant but eventually fails. At the end, act one is finished by them talking about the Simpsons' episode and singing the song in it.

Act two happens 7 years after act one. Nuclear disaster gets better and these six people found a theater company for living. They perform repertoire o Simpsons episode with "commercials" that help audience to recall the old good life. In order to make shows more accurate and entertaining, theater companies have to buy lines from audience who remember those correct lines to gain the right of using the line. Gibson's company has a new member, Quincy, as an actress, and they work very hard to compete with other theater companies. They are striving for life and never giving up, but sadly, at the end of act two, several members are killed by some unseen criminals. Act three is 75 years after act two. It begins with the show of the rework of Simpsons' episode, in which there is the history of the past decades and story in act one. Act three ends with the show's ending. 

Question 1 and 2: My thought about this play at the very beginning was somehow excited. It was just several people talking about the Simpsons. Suddenly, when Gibson arrives, the atmosphere becomes tense and fearful. Then I changed my mind that the happiness at the beginning is just a temporary happy moment of the 5 survivors from a catastrophe. When I read the stage direction when Gibson arrives, I was as if in the forest with them. The direction was so detailed, and through each of their actions, I could hear the sound from the darkness. As I follow Gibson and others' conversation, I begins to feel the depression of them. In this disaster, everyone wants to know how is their loved ones so bad, but finally their lists of people do not overlap at all. It is very frustrated, and I think this is the reason why they rely on each other a lot later in the play, since they are a group that goes through tough time together. In the stage direction, there are pauses sometime. I see those very meaningful. When Gibson says that the nuclear plant will no longer have personnel and Matt says that "people are not competent", there is a pause. Then they talk about how far the nuclear plant is. One is a hundred mile away and another is 30 miles away. There is a pause again. My emotional response to these two pauses is sadness, because through these pauses, I see they are helpless. They agree with Matt, "people are not competent", so they have nothing to say but stay in silence. The second pause shows hopeless and helpless. Someone may think that they are too close to the nuclear plant that may explode, and someone may think that they cannot get help because the nuclear plant is too far. What they do when they do not know what to do? They change topics, but the sadness just keeps coming.