EVERY BRILLIANT THING
By Duncan MacMillan
Directed by Jane Walsh
"Weiss is a marvelous storyteller, and has terrific material to work with" - Ralph Stalter, Jr., Eat More Art Vegas
When: 8 p.m. Thursday – Saturday; 2 p.m. Sunday through Sep 30
Where: Art Square Theatre, 1025 S First St, #110
Updated: Mar 8, 2019
★★★★★ - Irresistible
The origins of drama have often been attributed to simple storytelling, as when the storyteller adopts a false voice or adds characterization through movement and costume. In such terms, the art of theatre could be described at its most fundamental as the presence of an actor before an audience.
Visceral proof of such “fundamental” theatre is on display through September 30th at the Art Square Theater. Actor Marcus Weiss and Director Jane C. Walsh have fused their inventive talents in a truly outstanding, 5 STAR, irresistible evening – bringing playwright Duncan MacMillan’s “Every Brilliant Thing” to life under the auspices of Cockroach Theatre Company.
As a bit of background, Eric Bentley (eminent British born drama critic, playwright, editor and translator), believes that there are three elements which are essential for a theatrical performance: an actor, a character (developed by the playwright in the script), and an audience.
This play depends on little else, though there are certain benefits to having a director along for the journey. Ms. Walsh stages “Every Brilliant Thing” with an eye for detail: as with the list of every (brilliant) thing, it’s the little things that matter in this show. It’s staged in a small space with the audience on all four sides; this approach takes an already emotional story and adds to its immediacy. She navigates the space, tempo, and script with grace and efficiency. Her design team successfully enriches the simplicity of the production without disturbing the intimacy throughout: Zac Phillips (sets), Elizabeth Kline (lighting), and John McClean (sound).
Before the show starts, audience members are given slips of paper with numbered items written on them, and at certain points they are asked to call them out: ice cream, staying up past your bedtime, laughing so hard you shoot milk out of your nose. So, as a mother battles chronic depression, her young son begins the list that makes life worth living, the list that is the grounding theme for the entire show. As time passes, the list grows and what began as a naive attempt to deal with tragedy becomes an epic chronicle of life’s small joys. Staged in-the-round, this touching, funny and intimate play charts the lengths to which we will go for those we love.
Plays with audience participation are often awkward. Not everyone wants to be part of a show, and it can feel like a breach of an unspoken contract between performers and audience members to rope people in and make them the focus of everybody in the room. “Every Brilliant Thing” pulls off the trick of participation by approaching audience members beforehand (so there are no surprises), and by incorporating Mr. Weiss’ sunny personality: instantly trustworthy, in control of the room and yet, when it’s called for, courageously vulnerable. He is a marvelous storyteller, and has terrific material to work with.
Weiss is thorough and caring when connecting to each and every member of the audience, narrating the story. He’s seven years old. Mum’s in hospital. Dad says she’s “done something stupid”. She finds it hard to be happy. So, he starts a list of everything that’s brilliant about the world -- everything worth living for. He leaves it on her pillow. He knows she’s read it because she’s corrected his spelling.
As the narrator gets older, attends university, falls in love and gets married, the list -- which eventually swells to nearly a million entries -- includes such offbeat things as “peeing in the sea and nobody knows,” “the smell of old books” and “Christopher Walken’s hair.” Meanwhile, the narrator discovers, much to his heartbreak, that the list and his best intentions are not enough to prevent tragedy.
Weiss is an accomplished, versatile actor whose impish charm, warmth and naturalism serve him well here. A former clown, he had never set foot in Las Vegas until he was cast in Blue Man Group at the Luxor in the winter of 2000. He has also performed with the world-renowned improvisational troupe, The Second City, fine tuning his flexibility and inventiveness that come in handy as he must interact with new audience members every evening. His improv skills take the show to a higher level, allowing him to take liberties with the text without making the show run aground.
As a play, "Every Brilliant Thing" doesn't candy-coat the subject of suicide and family survival. But it does shine gentle theatrical light on the way sweetness and sorrow are both magnified by tragedy. While this is, indeed, a solo performance piece, theatrical art demands the collaboration of actors with a director, with the various technical workers upon whom they depend for costumes, scenery, and lighting, with volunteers across many departments, and with the business people who finance, organize, advertise, and market the productions. Cockroach Theatre Company has, yet again, successfully summoned their artistic resolve and the community support necessary to embrace local artists and patrons for their 15th Anniversary Season.
Oscar Wilde would be proud: “I regard the theatre as the greatest of all art forms, the most immediate way in which a human being can share with another the sense of what it is to be a human being.”
First produced by Paines Plough and Pentabus Theatre Company, “Every Brilliant Thing” was originally only ever meant to be performed twice: at Ludlow Fringe Festival and Ledbury Poetry Festival. It didn’t exactly turn out that way. It captured people’s hearts at the 2014 Edinburgh Fringe, played in New York for four months and has toured around the world. This utterly charming solo performance piece was also broadcast on HBO in December 2016.
Playwright Duncan MacMillan, who wrote the show with stand-up comic Jonny Donahoe, deliberately created a one-actor theater piece that could readily be adapted for a male or female performer and adjusted to fit any given time and place. The universality of the play’s themes — angst, family conflict, the fear of being an inadequate spouse or partner, time’s inevitable passage, and unavoidable loss — intersect seamlessly with its democratic approach. Should you ever find yourself phoning up an old teacher late at night to seek comfort from her sock puppet, you can take heart in knowing that even then, you’re not alone.
★★★☆☆ - Satisfying
The play "The Underpants," now showing on Las Vegas Little Theatre's main stage, is like an Henrik Ibsen drama and a bedroom farce all rolled into one. Adapted in 2002 by Steve Martin from Carl Sternheim's 1911 play "Die Hose," which is a satire of the bourgeoisie, it covers a lot of ground thematically but without really going anywhere. And while it's full of double entendres, witty banter, and thoughtful musing, the plot revolves around female subjugation and sexual objectification, which in LVLT's presentation evokes both laughter and dismay.
The setting is Dusseldorf Germany in 1910, a time when married women were considered the property of their husbands. As the show opens, a shocking incident has just occurred. Young housewife Louise's bloomers fell down as she stood tippy-toe trying to see the King in his parade, and her uptight husband Theo fears his reputation will be ruined by those who witnessed the event. But the two randy gentlemen who did happen to see it--the poet Versati and the barber Cohen--have something entirely different in mind. Titillated, they arrive separately at the couple's doorstep in order to rent a spare room in their flat, hoping to seduce Louise and get into her pants. And busybody neighbor Gertrude is more than happy to help.
Since the actors' experience levels are varied, director Chris Davies keeps the performances on the understated side so there's not excessive mugging. But the physical bits could use more choreography and the difficult relationship between Theo, played by James Raven Malpino, and Louise, played by Mary Claire Owen, needs to be fleshed out. While on the page Theo views their marriage as a business arrangement, it would be nice to have some connection between the two no matter how slight, so we can believe he has her best interests at heart.
As Louise, Owen resembles a delicate, porcelain doll with her pretty floral dress and cheerful nature. Her movements and mannerisms don't always fit the era, but there's a nice moment when she's alone onstage and strips down to her corset in anticipation of a romantic interlude with Versati. She strikes a series of awkward, sensuous poses she hopes might impress him, and creates a neat effect that is like a vignette from a silent movie. Her charming innocence stirs our protective instincts.
Which makes it harder to accept Theo's incessant harping about her place in their marriage and of her wifely duties. While the pragmatic fellow is written to be rigid and Malpino embodies that aspect without a doubt, he plays the part with such focused seriousness that it's hard to relate to him. A touch of tongue- in-cheek bombastry might soften the stinging words of the humorless guy.
Yet one of the best scenes of the show features Malpino as Theo and Glenn Heath as the wannabe-poet extraordinaire Versati debating the merits of their different philosophies of life. Is it better to conform dutifully to the state through endless hard work, or to live freely as an artist with a passion for beauty? There's a stark contrast between the two and the answer might lie somewhere in the middle, but the delightful Heath relishes each line with such bravado that he easily convinces us a bohemian life is the way to go.
Ernest Medina is endearing as the neurotic hypochondriac Cohen. He and Owen share a chemistry in their scenes together and his funny, deadpan stories get some of the biggest laughs of the night. The sassy Shana Brouwers shows the wheels turning in the mind of the scheming Gertrude with her funny expressions and wildly tapping fingers, while Rob Kastil provides subtle buffoonery as the frigid Klinglehoff and Dan Worthington is appropriately regal in a cameo as the King.
The set design by Ron Lindblom captures the period with detailed pieces and with warm, earthy colors, as does the light design of Ginny Adams; the sound design by Davies and Heath creates a rich atmosphere through the music of Richard Wagner; and Rose Scarborough's costumes are lovely, especially the women's dresses and Louise's yellow one in particular, with its whimsical Bavarian touches of pom pom fringe and zig zag trim.
LVLT's bawdy presentation of "The Underpants" is entertaining and amusing, but its inherent sexism might get your knickers in a twist.
+
