The Off-Broadway Theatre Review: Thirdwing’s Burbank
By Dennis W.
Burbank
Disney’s land Snow Whites, beautiful princesses in distress rescued by handsome prince charmings, lovely ethereal fairies to grant all your wishes, and wild mushrooms spinning and dancing to Tchaikovsky. It all seems like the perfect fantasy land to go to work every day and then like the happy dwarfs in Snow White singing “Heigh-ho, Heigh-ho, it’s home from work we go” at the end of a satisfying day at the Disney Studios doing what they love to do. But everything is not so bright and cheery at the studio in 1941 when workers decide they aren’t so happy at the home of Mickey Mouse and decide to take a stand.
Walt Disney’s public image that most people know from the television series “The Wonderful World of Disney.” As something akin to a kindly father with a soft reassuring voice. He would wrap the audience in a warm hug as he would introduce that week’s episode. But that is a far cry from the Walt Disney we meet in 1941 in Thirdwing’s well-cast and sharp-as-a-tack production of Burbank written strongly by Cameron Darwin Bossert (Thirdwing’s Founder) at The Wild Project in the East Village.
Walt Disney, played convincingly by playwright Bossert, is anything but warm and fatherly. His Disney is shifty-eyed with static movements, always smoking a cigarette. It is as if it gives him some smoky protection from the pressures he’s facing as if he is forever about to lose control. He is stymied, unable to understand how his employees could turn against him even though, as he says, they have volleyball.
This Disney is a man cornered, caught at a precarious turning point. His namesake studio, after the wild success of his “Snow White“, the following two projects did not fair as well, and his studio found itself in a troubling financial situation. And it is at this tense moment when his employees, some of whom are being paid notoriously low wages, decide to unionize.
Disney sees animator Art Babbitt as the person who could derail the call to unionize. Babbitt, played by Zachary Speigel (Thirdwing’s Vermont), is confident, selfless, and unafraid. When Disney wants him to lead the anti-union charge, Babbit goes toe to toe with the heavy-handed Disney who’s ready to play hardball with his employees as he has in the past. Babbitt pulls no punches, calling out his boss for killing the career of the woman who was the voice of Snow White including a clause in her contract that she cannot sing or act again insuring the image of Snow White is a forever thing.
Many of the lower-paid workers at the studio are women, lending an element of sexism and misogyny, relegated to more assembly line-type jobs as inkers and painters. Betty Ann Dunbar, deftly played with just the right amount of naivety by Kelly Lord (Thirdwing’s The United Nations: the Border and the Coast series) is almost euphoric at being able to do the work she loves even if it means just an apple for lunch that she blames on bad budgeting.
Period costumes by Yolanda Balana (Thirdwing’s Female Genius) really hit the mark for Babbitt and Dunbar but fall short for Walt Disney. He seemed too casually dressed for the head of a company that already had a major hit. The uncredited lighting design is almost distracting unable to define the spaces on the stage’s minimal set while the actors walk in and out of dark spots.
Burbank, the fictitious account of the animators’ strike of 1941 is an intricate weaving of Disney’s blurred vision of himself and his company and how his workers faced the need for a living wage. The ensemble cast not only tells the story of the strike but also brings to life their personal struggles and that although they create the fantasy worlds of Disney, they still have their real life problems to deal with. Burbank expertly knits together both these worlds in a bright, well-paced, entertaining package, and although it is at odds with the reality these characters exist in, they all share a passion for fantasy and animation.