STAGE REVIEW : ‘Burning’ Wastes an Interesting Idea

In “Burning Everything,” at 2nd Stage in Hollywood, playwright Steve Spehar takes a promising premise--what would go through the minds of the members of an all-citizen Utah firing squad before execution--and drops the ball.

Brian Kojac’s lifeless direction, to be sure, is no help, but the deeper problem is a dramatic situation stuck on a treadmill.

While most of the guys go along with the assignment, confused Jensen (Ron Dickenson) imagines a condemned man badgering his conscience. After the nth time, this effect wears very thin, and Spehar hasn’t found a way to move the group talk past idle chatter or earnest pronouncements. Dickenson’s shuddering presence makes us believe, much more than the suggestion that this six-man Utah squad would have only a pair of devout Mormons.