A SPELLBINDING CAULDRON BOILS OVER,
SUMMONING THEATER’S WILD GODS

Suffice it to say, there’s nothing else in New York quite like Anne Washburn’s new play The Burning Cauldron of Fiery Fire, now at the Vineyard Theatre in collaboration with The Civilians. For anyone bored by the constraints of realism and naturalism—and instead drawn to theater that’s bold, stylized, and unashamedly expressionistic—this production is your next essential ticket. Steve Cosson’s direction proves the ideal match for Washburn’s fever-dream imagination. And what a dream it is.

Lights rise on an eight-member cast grouped together on a dirt floor inside a vast wooden room. The actors are connected physically—hands on shoulders, palms on faces—forming a living breathing organism. They wear work clothes; the men’s hair is long, their beards unkempt. Another post-nuclear fable like Washburn’s Mr. Burns, A Post-Electric Play (also with The Civilians and directed by Mr. Cosson)? With stylized movement by Lisa Fagan, the group speaks singularly and, at times, in unison, like a ritualistic choral reading: “Redwood Hemlock Creek Eucalyptus Goat Turds Live Oak Squash.” But it doesn’t stay abstract for long, grasping for context. The play finds sudden grounding when a boy defaces a painting—and the artist is furious.

Bobby Moreno, Bartley Booz, Cricket Brown,
Donetta Lavinia Grays, Jeff Biehl, Bruce McKenzie

The boy goes unpunished and later turns to the audience, as his adult self, confessing that he vandalized the painting intentionally. He continues narrating throughout the play, along with others who step forward to share fragments of the story. Meanwhile, the play reveals its true setting: not a dystopian future but northern California, at a small remote commune of adults and children—an American kibbutz, an intentional community designed to reject capitalism, politics, and corruption. Far from any town or hospital, they sustain themselves with scarce resources and shared purpose. But when one member dies, the group must decide whether to inform the authorities—an act that would expose their fragile world to scrutiny. Their decisions, predictably human and disastrously flawed, trigger chaos as the deceased’s outside family interrupts their way of life.

Cricket Brown, Tom Pecinka, Bruce McKenzie, Marianne Rendón

Washburn filters this moral unraveling through a balanced mix of dramatic scene work, choral speech, direct address, a play within a play, and bursts of  songs delivered with striking conviction and harmony. The musical textures—songs and vocal arrangements by Nehemiah Luckett, with Dan Sander-Wells as music director—extend the play’s ritualistic pulse. Voices emerge from the ensemble like collective breath: overlapping chants, hymnal fragments, and bursts of harmony that sound both improvised and ancient. One number, “An Ode to the Wrack and Ruin,” becomes a centerpiece of communal release, uniting the cast in sound as the world around them teeters toward collapse. The superb ensemble—each playing both adults and children, as well as members of a contemporary Greek chorus—includes Jeff Biehl, Bartley Booz, Cricket Brown, Donnetta Lavinia Grays, Bruce McKenzie, Bobby Moreno, Tom Pecinka, and Marianne Rendón. They could easily play these far-left characters for satire or cheap laughs, but admirably, there isn’t a false moment among them.

In Act II, the commune stages an unfinished play in tribute to their departed member, performing as both actors and musicians with a mix of fantasy and manic joy. And even after you think Washburn has exhausted her wildest impulses, she doubles down. The final scene—no spoilers—elicits gasps, furrowed brows, and at least one audible “what the fuck.”

Tom Pecinka, Marianne Rendón

The production’s design elements meet Washburn’s imagination at full throttle. Andrew Boyce’s scenic design is rich with surprises, including the revelation that the play’s title is not a metaphor. Amith Chandrashaker’s lighting masters side lighting and haze, and Emily Rebholz’s costumes heighten the meta-world of this very “gifted and talented” commune, while Ryan Gamblin’s sound design and composition deepen the atmosphere with eerie precision.

Then there are the puppets—crafted by Monkey Boys Productions—which begin innocuously enough for a rural setting on a farm, but evolve into something spectacularly unexpected. Puppeteers Charlie Lovejoy, Hailey Sanchez, and Jonathan Sterling transform the stage into a stunning hallucinatory hellscape. Clearly, the kitchen basement door was chained up for a reason!

The Burning Cauldron of Fiery Fire is a startling, audacious work of theatrical expressionism—an incantation of chaos, community, and grace. Washburn and Cosson, with a fearless ensemble of actors and designers, conjure a world that burns with daring theatrical ferocity and wonder.

✦    ✦    ✦    ✦    ✦    ✦    ✦    ✦    ✦    ✦

photos by Carol Rosegg

The Burning Cauldron of Fiery Fire
Vineyard Theatre
co-production with The Civilians
Vineyard Theatre, 108 East 15th St
ends on November 30, 2025
for tickets, call 212.353.0303 or visit Vineyard Theatre
Vineyard Theatre on instagram, facebook, X, youtube

Gregory Fletcher is an author, theater professor, playwright, director, and stage manager. His publishing credits include a craft book on playwriting entitled Shorts and Briefs, as well as a collection entitled A Playwright’s Dozen: 13 short plays. Other publishing includes two YA novels (Other People’s Crazy, and Other People’s Drama), 2 novellas in the series Inclusive Bedtime Stories, 2 short stories in The Night Bazaar series, and five essays. Website, Facebook, Instagram.