"Mr. Burns" Morphs "The Simpsons" at Woolly Mammoth Michael Bailey From left, Steve Rosen, Jenna Sokolowski and Kimberly Gilbert in "Mr. Burns, a Post-Electric Play." IF only one piece of Western culture were to survive the apocalypse, you could do worse than the "Cape Feare" episode of "The Simpsons." Singling out any episode of this 23-seasons-and-counting animated series on Fox as a potential ur-text is sure to incite intense discussion. When it comes to debates over the canon Harold Bloom has nothing on devotees of Marge, Homer and their fellow Springfield denizens. In its favor "Cape Feare" - a 1993 parody of the 1991 Martin Scorsese film (itself a remake) in which Sideshow Bob substitutes for Robert De Niro as a vengeful ex-convict - does include an unthreatening threat for the ages: "Oh, I'll stay away from your son, all right. Stay away - forever! Memories of this line (delivered by Kelsey Grammer) and the rest of the episode play a central role in "Mr. Burns, a Post-Electric Play," the latest work by the Civilians, an investigative-theater troupe. In the play, which runs through July 1 at Woolly Mammoth Theater Company in Washington, Anne Washburn takes the Civilians" standard performance style and gradually converts it into something much creepier and more tenuous. The play begins in the near future, shortly after a global power outage has destroyed nearly all of the United States. When not searching for loved ones or batteries, a group of survivors commit "Cape Feare" to memory with a rigor that would do the manuscript-copying monks of Ireland proud. Over the ensuing 80 years, however, performances of the episode become a copy of a copy of a copy, rendering the original unrecognizable as it morphs to address the needs of its listeners. "It's not as witty," Ms. Washburn said of the pageantlike morality tale that "Cape Feare" ultimately becomes. Really, it has no wit whatsoever. But it's much more emotional, in the way that Passion plays were back in the day. That seemed appropriate to this cataclysmic setting. The idea of testimony degrading over time would seem to pose a threat to the Civilians" particular aesthetic. In pieces like "In the Footprint," "This Beautiful City" and "You Better Sit Down" the group has shown the power that can come from conducting interviews and then relaying that text to the audience, stammers and all. But Steven Cosson, the artistic director of the Civilians and director of "Mr. Burns," pointed out that several of its commissions have strayed from this style; among the exceptions is Jordan Harrison's play "Maple and Vine," which also uses the comforts of sitcoms as a dramatic springboard. For "Mr. Burns" Ms. Washburn organized a workshop in 2008 to see how well the actors could remember a single episode. "We didn't know how good their "Simpsons" recall would be," she said, but one participant, Matthew Maher, happened to be a "Simpsons" savant. The group settled fairly quickly on "Cape Feare," which Entertainment Weekly singled out in 2003 as "the show's most meticulous and manic pop-culture takeoff." "First Matt basically told us the whole thing, with some help from Jenny and Maria," Ms. Washburn said, referring to his co-stars Jennifer R. Morris and Maria Dizzia. Then the women tried to describe the episode, "with Matt weighing in repeatedly and heavily." Finally, Ms. Morris and Ms. Dizzia explained it to new listeners without Mr. Maher's assistance. The Act I retelling is based on the transcripts of these three sessions, and the characters are named after the workshop participants (who do not appear at Woolly Mammoth). One crucial change as the play develops involves the title character. Mr. Burns isn't in "Cape Feare," but by the end of Ms. Washburn's play he has supplanted Sideshow Bob as the episode's archnemesis. "The Robert De Niro character in "Cape Fear" is this primal figure," Ms. Washburn said, "whereas Sideshow Bob is this erudite, quintessential Kelsey Grammer character. And that really didn't make sense for our purposes. A goofy villain does not reflect what audiences in that world would need. Mr. Burns's position as Springfield's nuclear-power magnate is also crucial for the play, which alludes to offstage nuclear meltdowns. "Without a society intact to maintain the nuclear plants, all sorts of bad things happen," Mr. Cosson said. "Mr. Burns is the embodiment of nuclear power in "The Simpsons," and so he becomes a crucial figure for this society. "The Simpsons" did a parody of a very scary movie. And going into a much more fragile and dangerous world, I think this piece speaks to the original "Cape Fear" more than it does the "Simpsons" parody of it." Mr. Cosson said he showed lawyers the script and was assured that "Mr. Burns" fell within the fair-use parameters of copyright law. Ms. Washburn stressed that her play was "not a "Simpsons" story," but "a story of people telling "Simpsons" stories." Perhaps the drastically, poignantly new telling that she has created at the end of "Mr. Burns" will serve the dual purpose of bringing audiences in and keeping the Fox network's lawyers away.