Passion & poetry – BGSU’s ‘Burning Patience’ has seductive charm

"Burning Patience" tells of the dangers of poetry.
Poetry is all the more dangerous for the seductive pull of its words. As one character in the play Rosa
tells her love-besotted daughter: "If you confuse poetry with politics you’ll be pregnant in an
instant."
Yet as the play makes clear it is impossible to separate poetry and politics and passion, just as it is
impossible to separate poetry from the ebb and flow of life.
"Burning Patience," which opens tonight at Bowling Green State University, begins with poetry
spoken by Pablo Neruda (Joe Connelly), celebrating his isolated home on Isla Negra in Chile. The surf he
says kneads the beach as if making bread.
The poet is in his later years, a Nobel Prize nominee and beloved in his home country even by those who
can’t read, a celebrity even to those like Rosa Gonzales (Ellie Messenger) who disdain his leftist
politics and the erotic charge of his work.
Certainly that passion speaks to the postman. Played by Kyle Petitjean, Mario Jimenez only delivers
letters to Neruda because few others on the island can even read, never mind correspond with anyone
outside the island. His first few scenes are played out in pantomime – the script is spare, like poetry,
and not afraid of its own silences. Petitjean doesn’t need to speak to project his character’s nervous
admiration for the poet. He makes clear with his mix of shyness and anticipation that this is an
important man to whom he is delivering letters.
The poet hardly notices him. Lost in his own thoughts he accepts his mail and tips the deliverer, who
stands wanting desperately to talk, but tongue-tied.
Finally they do converse, though at first the bemused poet sees him more as a bother interrupting his
work. Even when aloof, though, Connelly’s Neruda exudes warmth.
The friendship grows, especially after the postman confesses he’s in love with a local girl Beatriz
Gonzales (Kaitlyn Majoy). The postman appropriates Neruda’s poetry to woe the teenager, much to the
chagrin of her mother Rosa.
Messinger is wonderful as she chides her daughter about the dangers of poetry, all the while betraying
her secret love of it – she’s able to speak whole poems by heart.
For her part Majoy is fully convincing as the young woman consumed by passion. The scene with her and
Petitjean and an egg is as sensual as possible on a college stage.
But politics intrude. "The party" – Neruda was a lifelong Communist – has nominated the poet
for president. He sees the campaign as an extension of his work, a way of connecting with the people,
confirming his belief that he is "one more leaf on the tree of humanity."
He steps aside for the leftist candidate Salvador Allende, who wins the presidency. His tenure would be
short, as he was murdered in a right wing coup, supported by the Nixon Administration.
In the end, the politicians recognize the dangers of poetry to excite the ambitions of people by
celebrating their essential humanity. The words, though, provide no protection either from the police or
mortality. Poetry provides only comfort and hope for the future.