EDGE on the Net

As soon as the lights come up on Cusi Cram’s new play, A Lifetime Burning, at Primary Stages, we witness something rare. Jennifer Westfeldt, who plays Emma, is sitting on a couch, center-stage, faced toward the audience, and living. The actresses’ every eye flicker, smile, tremor, moves out to the audience, toward her sister, Tess (Christina Kirk), standing beside her, and, most wondrously, back inside of herself. It’s an outstanding performance, a hummingbird that can’t land.

Emma, we learn, is a New York City glamour girl; sexy, with cheekbones that photographers used to call impossibly high, and a knockout in a mini-dress and heels. She’s also bi-polar, a woman who’s been in and out of institutions for much of her life, and, jokes aside (and there are some doozies), a china doll that could break at any time during the 90-minute, intermission-less play. A lesser actress could have made the whole show fail, or simply turn into a sitcom-with-a-moral showpiece.

The play, too, contains some of the best writing since August: Osage County, and is a welcome relief from the doldrums of late. The secret of Cram’s writing is that she does not go for shock value, trick writing, or over-statement. In other words, there’s no secret; just talent.

In A Lifetime Burning, Emma’s written an autobiography of herself, "Bi-Polar with Style," that’s rather exaggerated (old news). She and her sister don’t get along (been there). Memories are re-enacted (is Tennessee Williams in the house?). And British snooty types are scoffed at (Noel and Oscar, can you hear me?). While that would seem to be a criticism, it’s anything but. Instead of following someone else’s script, Cram writes from inside, doling out lines that build the story beautifully yet sound organically real.

The director, Pam MacKinnon, adds her own inspired touch to the production, knowing when the right moments are to build, and when to let the characters talk. While you might cringe in doubt when the first flashback arrives upstage, MacKinnon’s staging is delicate and smart. Sibling rivalry stories that also involve a lot of alcohol (the sisters drink throughout), are too often stymied by excess screeching. With the exception of an unsteady first outburst by Kirk, rarely does this story vary away from the relationship onstage.

Kirk has the challenging role of the unhappy Westchester wife with a louse of a husband and two uncontrollable kids. She’s good, if not as possessed of her character as Westfeldt. Ironically, as the older, frumpier, sane sister with a good job, the actress can’t compete with the acting of the attention-hungry, self-absorbed, spoiled younger sister.

The other characters are Emma’s young, Latin student/lover, Alejandro (Raul Castillo), and Emma’s publisher, Lydia (Isabel Keating). Both actors are in fine form, Castillo nicely balancing out Westfeldt’s neuroses, and Keating upping the fun factor as the uppity book publisher. Kris Stone’s simple and sumptuous set of a Manhattan apartment is as smooth as the martinis Emma’s fond of.

Glitches, there are few. The subject of book plagiarism is no longer new, and anyone watching knows that a few simple Internet clicks would expose Emma’s so-called life. As such, some of the ramifications of who’s to blame seem irrelevant. The reference to James Frey, probably thrown in to ensure us that the play is timely, defeats its own purpose. Left out, we’d be more likely to believe the play takes place a few years’ back, before authors’ lies were common knowledge.

More problematic is Emma’s real past, which flouders about the stage much like the actress, never quite settling into a real composite for us to understand. Redardless, A Lifetime Burning is that rare play that deserves the title of "dark comedy," a label that PR people put on just about every production nowadays (soon, Hamlet will be promoted with that tagline). At times savagely funny, at other times just savage, it’s a cohesive piece of drama -- and comedy -- unfolding, and an hour and a half of pure entertainment.

A Lifetime of Burning continues through September 5 at Primary Stages at 59E59 Theaters, 59 East 59th St., New York, NY 10022.