An ambitious premise
BURNOUT is a one-woman show, where Aneta Kölblová plays Fern, a woman in her late 20s, struggling with loneliness and fruitless relationships. Except for bananas, we’ll come to that.
The story is set on one small stage, representing Fern’s apartment, dressed in ‘millennial pink’. We hear voice messages from men she has dated and who are ending the relationship. This premise is repeated a few times throughout the show, but typically, we only hear from Fern, in a series of one-sided conversations mostly with her therapist, but also occasionally her friend. We also have an anthropomorphic moment with a spider she traps under a glass, and banana(s) on which she draws faces. We hear her highs and lows as she flits from man to man, without a shred of self-worth (until the end of the play), and the toll that this life takes on her, until she starts to turn this tide.
This is an ambitious premise, and Aneta’s performance is fantastic as she inhabits her character entirely, and her monologues are delivered with passion and assurance. However, the character of Fern is so one-dimensional and shallow, it’s hard to root for her, and felt strangely soulless. A few more insights into the rest of Fern’s life would have made her a more rounded character, more life-like and relatable. Claiming to be educated and having ‘done the work’ on herself, she appears as self-aware as her banana friend, with a script that ties her up in hackneyed clichés that could be found in any number of cheesy 90s sitcoms. One scene is almost an exact replica of a scene from Friends (when Rachel turns 30), and her fruit friends are reminiscent of BBC’s Miranda. There are some nuanced observations about modern dating app photos, and social media influences, and I’d have loved to see these be explored more instead.
Given the limitations of the space available, the set is beautiful, but the seating arrangement means the action is only fully visible from the front row, as evidenced by members of the audience switching seats at the start of the performance. Given that at least half the show is performed at floor level, it would be preferable to have this on a raised stage. However, the lighting and the sound production is well designed and atmospheric, particularly the ominous white noise preceding a panic attack.
The climax of the show is muddy – it could have ended at four different points, but finally closed with Fern staring blissfully into a flourishing fern plant, beatifically bathed in lamp light, and left me wanting a more introspective result, and greater personal growth.
It’s unfortunate that these issues exist, as the underlying subject matter is important issue in today’s society, and deserves to be highlighted in a fresh way, but perhaps in a more nuanced and more empathetic way than the show presented here. This is an unique production, with some solid observations on modern dating life, but hampered with some rather unoriginal elements. It has the foundations to be something so much more, and deserves a bit more attention – much like Fern.