Colleen Murphy's new play lays bare a society divided

Watching Canadian playwright Colleen Murphy’s Bright Burning is similar to watching a train careen on a high-speed collision course towards another train.

You grip your seat and pray the head-on explosion won’t happen even as your eyes watch the inevitable fireball and hear the screams of agony.

Commissioned from the award-winning Murphy specifically for 12 graduating University of Alberta BFA actors, Bright Burning explores the great class divide between the very rich and the working poor on society’s fringe.

The explosion in this case occurs when six drugged-up kids break into a luxurious Edmonton mansion to steal enough stuff to pay off a drug debt.

What awaits them is a jaw-dropping foyer with a majestic double staircase. On the second floor sits a grand piano topped by a New York industrial style chandelier that is swung on repeated times.

These foul-mouthed, unpredictable kids have stepped into a Disneyland of riches they never knew existed. Giddy with delight, they pillage the house discovering a mixed bag of possessions: a 24-carat vibrator, TV monitors, jewelry, candelabras, Fabergé eggs, cases of vintage wine, furs and designer clothes.

Everything is dumped into a garbage heap on the foyer floor.

Darnell (Jake Tkaczyk) even tries dragging a grandfather clock down the marble staircase before he’s reminded that he can’t take it on the LRT.

Not exactly masterminds at committing a B and E, the gang of six have arrived on foot without transportation to cart the loot to a safe destination. But this major setback does not prevent them from fantasizing about what their life would be like surrounded by a cornucopia of abundance.

The more stuff they haul into the foyer, the more outlandish and unrealistic their dreams become. They play dress-up, try on different hats and wear overblown jewelry.

When Darnell crashes a motorboat through a wall, they hop on pretending to sail to different ports around the world. Each character voices his/her fantasies, and for a few moments they are once again young children enjoying a game of make believe. A glimmer of innocence, perhaps the most poignant in the two-hour production peeks through the hardened faces.

Yet when a pizza delivery boy appears and the affluent owner’s two daughters, Ruby (Emily Howard) and her younger sister Sam (Emma Houghton) return early from holidays, all plans are thrown into disarray and panic follows.

There is some verbal jousting between the haves and have-nots and Ruby posits that wealth does not cause poverty. Many would disagree.

As the stuff piles onto the floor, the gang comes to realize there is a great chasm between the rich and poor. They are outsiders looking in and gradually their wonder morphs into a suffocating anger.

Deon (Max Ludwig) just wants to pay his drug debt to Fleur (Jaimi Reese), the butch drug dealer. She’s a complete bad-ass who pimps out her bullied girlfriend Larkin (Chayla Day).

Ari (Jordan Buhat) writes weak songs yet dreams of making a pile of money and buying his sick mother pretty gifts from the shopping channel. J Jarvis (Jacob Holloway), Fleur’s enforcer, is a psychopath who attends a support group, and Joceyln, a single mother of a three-year-old just craves a hit.

Two of the most believable and dynamic performances come from the cast’s two St. Albert actresses. Alexandra Dawkins plays Lou, a woman with natural leadership qualities who dreams of becoming a vet yet her drug habit leads her down the road to perdition.

And Sarah Ormandy’s Emily is a bubbly autistic savant with a photographic memory for recalling trivial information. Ormandy has gifted Emily with a clipped, robotic speech. Rather than separate her from the group, it actually makes her a major comedic linchpin.

Director Jan Selman deserves a great deal of credit for pacing the action and keeping the suspense taut. Lee Livingstone’s set is a creative knockout and sound designer Aidan Ware creates a spectacular finale that left many in the audience completely stunned.

Beautifully crafted and well-acted with a powerful message about North America’s financial inequality, Burning Bright will no doubt spark thought-provoking controversy.

Bright Burning runs at the Timms Centre for the Arts until Saturday, April 8.