‘For We Are American’: Postmodern Pastiche and National Identity in Anne Washburn’s Mr. Burns, a Post-Electric Play

Abstract

Abstract The final act of Anne Washburn’s Mr. Burns, a Post-Electric Play features a Greek tragedy-like distillation of the “Cape Feare” episode of The Simpsons, performed many decades after an unspecified catastrophe has left the former United States in a state of post-apocalyptic ruin. After the first two acts’ depiction of an earlier generation’s struggles to both survive and connect with each other through the preservation of some elements of their previous shared culture, the third act’s culmination in a display of treadmill-powered electric lights accompanied by an inspirational anthem has often been interpreted as a celebration of the timelessness and tenacity of the human storytelling impulse. But while earlier versions of the play structured this final moment within a pastiche expression of American patriotism (sung to the tune of Gilbert and Sullivan’s “For He Is an Englishman”), subsequent versions have expunged this final reference to national pride, as well as any reference to the satirically nationalistic source material from which it stemmed, opting instead to trace the development of a more ‘empty’ G&S quotation into its post-apocalyptic future. This paper will examine the implications of this change in regards to the play's pastiche portrayal of what Jean-Luc Nancy calls the “myth of myth” and the role of its interruption in imagining an “inoperative community” beyond or to the side of nation-based constructions of identity.