Lanford Wilson’s “Burn This” is one of those rare two-act, two-and-a-half-hour plays that needs a long third act. We need to know what happens to the talented young choreographer Anna after she dumps her very civilized boyfriend, Burton, to take up with the Neanderthal named Pale. Does she end up on drugs or in the hospital or dead?
The Anna-Pale relationship brings to mind what might happen to Blanche du Bois if, after rejecting a marriage proposal from Mitch, she has an affair with her sister’s husband, Stanley Kowalski, post-rape.
“Burn This” opened on Broadway in 1987, and John Malkovich mesmerized as the volatile Pale by tossing and incessantly playing with his long-hair wig.