Review: World Premiere THROW ME ON THE BURNPILE AND LIGHT ME UP Shares Lucy Alibar's Southern Childhood Memories

Solo shows written and performed by their authors need to be told with enough personal stage presence to be truly interesting to the audience. Such is the case in Lucy Alibar's world premiere THROW ME ON THE BURNPILE AND LIGHT ME UP in which she enthusiastically and humorously shares journal entries blending scenes of a lecherous goat, Pentecostals on the radio, disputes with a childhood freinemy, a clutter of inbred cats, phone calls from death row, Daddy's burnpile, and countless other rich ingredients into a delicious and magical stew of stories about her singular childhood in Grady County, Florida. The play is currently onstage through October 2, 2016,.at the Center Theatre Group's Kirk Douglas Theatre in downtown Culver City, directed by Center Theatre Group Associate Artistic Director Neel Keller.

Thankfully Oscar-nominated Lucy Alibar (Best Adapted Screenplay for "Beasts of the Southern Wild") obviously outgrew her childhood IQ test which listed her at 70, "and that was one of the best in her 4th grade class, allowing me to get into the gifted trailer at school." Her father, a trained lawyer, looked beyond that number and recognized Lucy's ability to organize anything and drafted her at age 9 to assist him in his home office with his Public Defender cases in which he was assigned to defend "even the worse murders" on Death Row since "no matter how sorry a piece of sh*t you are, you deserve a defense." With delightful descriptions of even the most horrendous acts, Alibar shares her fascination with evidence photos of scenes no 9-year old should ever see. Such was her reality of the world.

Of course he lost many of his cases, hence the backyard burnpile in which cardboard boxes containing his clients' incarceration mementoes and documents await their fiery destruction. And from the moment you walk into the theater, it's very apparent the large stack of boxes, broken furniture and other throwaways at stage right are ready to bid farewell to the world.

Alibar is a wonderful storyteller, dressed in cut-off shorts and white t-shirt like any typical 9-year old. As she walks about the stage from location to location for physical props to support her childhood stories, each chapter's title is visually shared while projections change to reflect the scenes whether it be a thunderous storm or the final spectacular burnpile's destruction. And while there are some very "adult" stories told from a 9-year old's perspective, the innocence of the speaker always shines through. With such a lecherous goat who mounts anything and anyone in their yard, this young girl has learned a lot about the birds and the bees in the most basic sense of the word. I especially enjoyed her tale of how her father insisted they not celebrate Christmas a certain way and how Carl, that same lecherous goat, worked against his wishes.

The play is currently being adapted into a pilot for FX and I certainly look forward to following more of Alibar's childhood tales. Somewhere out there is a very lucky 9-year old girl who will get to play the heroine in this family tale or love, struggle, survival and compassion that will appeal to all ages.

Thanks to the play's design team of Takeshi Kata for scenic design, Laura Bauer for costumes, Elizabeth Harper for lighting, Adam Phalen for sound (great country music welcomes you) and Jason H. Thompson for projection design, those not too familiar with the Southern location will immediately get a sense of the hot and steamy climate as well as the atmospheric moodiness in which Alibar was raised, as well as her dreams of floating among the stars as a disco ball throws bright lights on the theater walls.

Tickets for THROW ME ON THE BURNPILE AND LIGHT ME UP are available by calling (213) 628-2772 or online at www.CenterTheatreGroup.org. Tickets range from $25 - $70, subject to change. A lobby Q&A with the author follows most performances. The Kirk Douglas Theatre is located at 9820 Washington Blvd. in Culver City, CA 90232. Ample free parking and restaurants are adjacent.

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