Every Brilliant Thing ***

It’s easy to understand why this one-man show was a hit at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, but it’s hard to describe it in a manner that makes it sound appealing. It’s a comedy about depression, told by a narrator who, as a 7-year-old, started compiling a list of things that make life worth living, e.g. ice cream, roller coasters, water fights and the color yellow. The list is intended to cheer up his mother, who has just attempted suicide for the first time. The narrator is winningly played by British comedian Jonny Donahoe, who perfectly navigates a path between sentimentality and despair without a scratch. Before the show, he hands out slips of paper with items from the list to be called out by audience members at the appropriate moment. He also invites a few people to join him in scenes that involve important people in his life. I generally dread shows with audience participation, but it is handled here with gentleness and finesse. The play is filled with interludes of soulful music from his father’s record collection, which he has learned to use as a barometer of his father’s mood. As life goes on, the narrator keeps adding to the list, which plays a role in helping him find true love. However, his unshakeable fear of following in his mother’s footsteps keeps him from enjoying life fully for a long time. There are so many ways the tricky material could go wrong, but playwright Duncan Macmillan, co-writer and performer Donahoe and director George Perrin handle it brilliantly. If you’re going to be near the Barrow Street Theatre anytime soon, it’s a very pleasant way to spend an hour.

Waiting for Godot (in Yiddish) ***

We should be grateful to Shane Baker for taking on the task of translating Beckett’s landmark tragicomedy to Yiddish and to New Yiddish Rep for bringing it to the Barrow Street Theatre.. Somehow the words spoken by Beckett’s characters Vladimir (Baker), Estragon (David Mandelbaum), Pozzo (Allen Lewis Rickman) and Lucky (Rafael Goldwaser) take on an added emotional weight when they are heard in Yiddish. It helps that all four actors are superb in their roles. Rickman and Goldwaser are so good that they almost steal the limelight from the two main characters. Despite his gray hair and balding pate, Baker has such a youthful face that he appears much younger than Mandelbaum. Lucky’s long soliloquy in the first act is absolutely mesmerizing. (There is a video of it out there. Google it). In a nice touch, Godot’s messenger is played by a young African-American boy with dreadlocks (Nicholas Jenkins) The simple set by George Xenos is effective. Moshe Yassur not only skillfully directed the play but designed the costumes. Even in this fine production the play’s second act never reaches the high level of the first. It is a play that I admire but will never wholeheartedly like. I’m glad to see it presented so well though. There are English supertitles. Running time: 2 hours 20 minutes including intermission.

Hit the Wall **

(Please click on the title to see the complete review.)
Ike Holter's version of the Stonewall Riot of June 1969, now at the Barrow Street Theatre, is lively and contains some affecting moments, but it offers no new insights about the event and isn't even a very effective history lesson. The energetic ensemble cast tries, with varying success, to breathe life into stereotypical characters, chosen to reflect the diversity of the participants. Thus we get one drag queen, one black militant feminist, a WASP from suburbia appopriately called Newbie; a pair of wisecracking friends, one black and the other Hispanic; an innocent draft-dodger, a butch teen-aged lesbian, her straight sister, a closeted Wall Streeter, a cop and some hippie street musicians. Mix and match. There's dancing, rioting and a little gratuitous nudity. Nathan Lee Graham and Rania Salem Manganaro stand out as the drag queen and the young lesbian. Lauren Helpern's set design is a bit fragmented. David Hyman's costumes are fine. Director Eric Hoff keeps things moving. Ultimately, the play sheds more heat than light. Running time: 95 minutes, no intermission.

Tribes ****

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Director David Cromer, whose production of Our Town at Barrow Street Theatre was so widely acclaimed, is back with an Olivier-nominated family drama by Nina Raine about deafness and language. Billy (Russell Harvard), the deaf youngest child of an intellectual family headed by retired academic Christopher (Jeff Perry) and would-be novelist Beth (Mare Winningham), is a very skilled lip-reader, but was deliberately never taught sign language. His seriously depressed brother Daniel (Will Brill) is writing a dissertation on the inadequacy of language. His sister Ruth (Gayle Rankin) is an unsuccessful opera singer. His self-absorbed parents and siblings may hear, but they don't listen. Billy's feeling of isolation when he is left out of their intellectual battles goes unnoticed. When he falls in love with Sylvia (Susan Pourfar), a young woman active in the deaf community who is herself going deaf and who teaches him sign language, Billy's feelings toward his family change dramatically. A subplot about him working for the court system reading lips from surveillance videos misfires. The cast is uniformly excellent. The set by Scott Pask makes good use of the limited space. Staging the play in the round (in the square, actually) works quite well. The play presents interesting arguments about whether embracing deaf culture is liberating or limiting. It is far from perfect, but it is thought-provoking and deeply felt. It's not for everyone, but I was glad I saw it. Running time: 2 hours, 15 minutes including intermission.

Cymbeline ****

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Let me add my voice to the chorus of praise for this very clever production of Shakespeare's problematic late romance.  Fiasco Theater, a group of six recent graduates of the Brown/Trinity Rep MFA program (Jessie Austrian, Noah Brody, Paul L. Coffey, Andy Grotelueschen, Ben Steinfeld and Emily Young), have shaped this thorny work into an entertaining production. It ran for two sold-out weeks last winter at the New Victory Theater and recently reopened at Barrow Street Theatre. Proving that less is sometimes more, the cast of six play 14 roles on a set consisting of two wooden crates, a sheet, and what's billed as a "fabulous trunk." They also play musical instruments and sing beautifully. And who said a little Appalachian folk music can't serve Shakespeare well? The acting mostly avoids crossing the line into tongue-in-cheek. The second half, with its battle scene, headless corpse, and final reconciliation scene, is especially gratifying. Brody and Steinfeld codirected with Brody also serving as fight director and Steinfeld as music director. You needn't be an ardent Shakespearean to enjoy this ingenious version. Running time: 2 1/2 hours including intermission.

No Child... ****

This solo piece, written and performed by Nilaja Sun, was first seen here five years ago. After touring and winning many awards, it is now back at the Barrow Street Theatre for a limited run. Based on her experiences as a teaching artist in the New York City Schools, it describes a program that brings an idealistic actress to one of the worst classes in one of the worst high schools in the Bronx to lead a six-week workshop which will culminate in a class performance of "Our Country's Good," Timberlake Wertenbaker's play about Australian convicts putting on a play. The students are quick to notice the similarities between their treatment in school and the convicts' prison experiences. There may be only one actor onstage, but she convincingly creates over 15 different characters, including the school janitor, the acting teacher, the students, their parents, the principal and a security guard. Sun changes roles in a split second without the aid of makeup or costume changes. It's quite a tour de force. In turn hilarious and heartbreaking, the 70-minute play provides a vivid picture of life in a troubled urban school. Its hopeful message about the redeeming power of art seemed more wishful thinking than reality though. Hal Brooks directed. Sun got a well-deserved standing ovation.
Note: Avoid seats in Row B -- there is no riser between the first two rows.

My Girlfriend's Boyfriend ***

I greatly enjoyed Mike Birbiglia's comic monologue Sleepwalk with Me two years ago. His gentle self-deprecating manner and his way of embellishing a story with a multitude of funny detours appealed to me. I was afraid that his latest solo comedy, now at the Barrow Street Theatre, might be either repetitious or disappointing. My fears were unjustified. If anything, Birbiglia is even better now. To his previous strengths he has added a knack for physical comedy that is hilarious. His recreation of a queasy carnival ride and an airport run with an unwilling rolling suitcase were knee-slappers. The focus this time around is on the history of his social ineptitude from seventh grade to his thirties. Stories that first seen loosely knit turn out be part of a seamless arc. The 70 minutes flew by enjoyably without any letdowns. Seth Barrish directed.

I was surprised that there were only a handful of people over 40 in the sold-out house.

Mistakes Were Made **

Michael Shannon seems to thrive at the Barrow Street Theatre. First in "Bug," then in "Our Town," and now in Craig Wright's new comedy, Shannon grabs your attention and doesn't let go. "Mistakes Were Made" is the title of a play about the French Revolution by a new playwright that small-time producer Felix Artifex (Shannon) is trying to bring to New York. During the play's 90-minutes, his plans spectacularly unravel in a series of phone calls from a Hollywood star who would like the play rewritten for him, the unwilling playwright, his agent, the drivers of a 10-truck convoy of sheep in Iraq (don't ask!) and various other nemeses who lead Felix to a meltdown. Except for messages from Felix's secretary (Mierka Girten) and a few one-way conversations with his overfed pet fish (controlled by puppeteer Sam Deutsch), Felix's half of the phone calls is the whole play. The fish is apt because making fun of show biz types is a bit like shooting fish in a barrel. A brief effort near the end to supply Felix with a back story that would make his behavior more comprehensible mostly misfires. The humor wore thin for me, but Shannon's performance was dazzling. Dexter Bullard directed.