“Mr. Burns, a Post-Electric Play,” written by Anne Washburn and produced this spring by the Vassar Drama Department, might be the weirdest show I have ever seen. It tells the story of a post-apocalyptic world where episodes of “The Simpsons” become a means of reliving a shared, lost, past. It is a meditation on pop culture—on the myths we build as a society and the ways we rely on those myths to give our lives meaning. Besides all of that, though, it was just plain funny. The play was directed by department chair Christopher Grabowski and featured the work of senior thesis members Samuel Andrews, Jacqueline Evangelista, Rowan Rouner-Greer, Ivy Schenk, Frederica von Siemens and Ki’tsai Zangpo, and went up from April 3 to 5 in Vassar’s Powerhouse Theater.
The show begins simply: A few characters, survivors of a recent nuclear apocalypse, sit around a plywood campfire. To pass the time, they try to remember the details of the Season 5 “Simpsons” episode “Cape Feare.” If this seems to you like an odd thing for them to be doing, do not worry—it will get plenty weirder.
The first act seamlessly vaults from laughter to eschatological paranoia and back: People are gun-wielding and flighty, but also share moments of connection and happy escape. Oliver Hollman ’27 here gives a particularly spirited performance as Matt, correcting the others when they misremember details: “Blinky? No. No. That’s a whole other episode.” Subtle dramatic choices, inflections of tone and body language—small gestures of intimacy between characters, a glance here or there—convey a world of meaning beyond the relatively inane subject of actual conversation.
Act 2 takes place seven years later with an expanded ensemble—this gang of survivors has now formed a “Simpsons” reenactment troupe. As they rehearse scenes, we get moments of comedy: Matt as Homer Simpson talking to the FBI, and, most memorably, Quincy (Evangelista) and Gibson (Andrews) playing a suburban married couple talking salaciously about food. There are moments of real drama, too; tensions high with the still-terrible, violent outside world always looming just out of sight.
And in the middle of the act, in the heat of an argument about a small theatrical decision, a line that gets to the heart of the matter. Maria (Rouner-Greer) makes a point about making their performance mean something. And Quincy replies: “Meaning is everywhere. We get meaning for free, whether we like it or not. Meaningless entertainment, on the other hand, is actually really hard.”
“Where else do we get to experience that?” Quincy says. “Nowhere.”
Art is an escape, in troubled times most of all. And in the world where “The Simpsons” has gone off the air—along with everything else—they are kept alive by a group of people who need, more than ever, ways to sit back and laugh. To just enjoy entertainment. These subtleties, throwaway and seemingly improvised lines here and there, really give us a sense of the world—and the psychology—these characters inhabit; pre-apocalypse pop-culture serving as both a life-raft and a livelihood. It speaks to the quality of the script, of course, but also to the cast and production team’s concentrated effort in drawing out its every subtlety. (Another assist: As the program notes, during rehearsals, playwright Anne Washburn made a visit with the cast and crew!)
Act 3 happens 75 years later, in an entirely different world. The show has become sophisticated and bombastic, some kind of opera—free of Act 2’s intentionally rough edges. We see “Cape Feare”—the same episode remembered by the characters in Act 1—evolved into an elaborately-staged musical melodrama of the Simpson family taken hostage by the dastardly Mr. Burns (Roman Shaheen ’27). This is full-blown performance, not rehearsal, with a sheer commitment to the bit that makes you unsure whether to laugh or just sit there, slack-jawed. The characters are playing to us now, and they know it. Through this performance, we get a sense of how society has rebuilt itself and how “The Simpsons” have been mythologized; the plot varies considerably from the original episode—but in this world, what does that matter? Culture evolves, as do the stories we tell ourselves.
This three-act evolution was creative and well-executed, thanks both to a cast without a single weak link and the efforts of an excellent production team. Sets, built by Seth Jenkins ’25, were great, from the stripped-back simplicity of Act 1 to the homespun charm of Act 2, where the troupe rolled around backdrops strapped to shopping carts. Act 3’s massive moving boat and kitschy decorations were perfect, although a hand-painted banner hung in the back looked slightly out-of-place. Costumes, by Foster Schrader ’25, were perfectly post-apocalyptic—by the last act, artsy and shiny and wonderfully weird. A voice-heavy musical score was well-directed by Sarah Dworman ’27, who in a meta-theatrical flourish stood onstage, conducting the latter part of the show. The show, for all its narrative disjointedness, maintained a level of cohesion certainly attributable to the direction of Professor and Chair of Drama Christopher Grabowski.
Of the whole experience, a moment near the very end of the play will stick with me for a very long time. The final act eventually pits Bart against Mr. Burns in a climactic sword fight to the death, and as Bart, Evangelista gives a literally show-stopping performance. Her character is alone and fighting for his life, his dead family looking on in white veils. Eventually, he prevails, killing Mr. Burns and sending away his minions, Itchy and Scratchy. In that moment of sudden calm, the music subsides. And he sings an aria—about life and finding new meaning, about “meet[ing] life gloriously.”
It is an indescribably surreal moment. And amid all the ridiculousness of everything onstage, the sheer absurdity of a post-apocalyptic “Simpsons” opera executed with such earnestness—amid all that, Bart’s song moved me; profoundly. Somehow. It was a deeply emotional moment; the very kind Evangelista’s character in Act 2 would have shunned. In that difference, we see how society has rebuilt itself. How, decades later, the role of art is no longer to make you forget, but once again to make you feel.
To everyone out there: Watch more theater. It can be weird, but well worth it.