Burn unfolds as a sequence of mundanely melodramatic domestic vignettes from the suburbs. The home environment is spontaneously ablaze. The inhabitants appear to carry on as normal, but their stilted quotidian rituals— eating a sandwich, sitting and reading the newspaper, laying in bed—become asphyxiated, communication limited, expression difficult, all betraying an underlying malaise and unease that permeates everyday existence, usually invisible, here reified and tangible.
“Burn is a stunning evocation of those unspoken, those secrets, worries and lies, forming a force which is always a part of the fabric of everyday interactions; at first niggling at the edges, then – provoked by a word or a gesture – suddenly searing through everything and everyone in its path”. Belinda McKeon, The Irish Times