by Mike Hoban
Every Brilliant Thing – Written by Duncan MacMillan; Directed by Marianna Bassham; Scenic and Lighting Design by Eric Levenson; Sound Design by Lee Schuna; Costume Design by Amanda Ostrow Mason (costumes). Presented by SpeakEasy Stage Company at the Boston Center for the Arts, 527 Tremont St., Boston through March 31st.
Every Brilliant Thing, now being given its Boston premiere by Speakeasy Stage Company, is brilliant alright, but much more so for its simplicity rather than as a work that presents BIG IDEAS. Performed by the (brilliant in her own right) Adrienne Krstansky, along with what seemed to be fully half of the audience, this seventy-minute piece is a sneakily moving comedy about that most mirthful of topics – suicidal depression.
When the unnamed Narrator (Krstansky) opens with the line, “The list began with her first attempt. A list of everything brilliant about the world. Everything worth fighting for,” we know what she’s referring to, and it’s not a swim across the English Channel. Her mother has made a suicide attempt, and she and her father (played rather well by a random audience member) drive to the hospital to visit her. When the Narrator returns home she begins making her list, beginning with “ice cream,” followed by “water fights” and “staying up past your bedtime and watching TV”, the types of thing that you would expect to be celebrated by any seven year-old. And certainly one who is trying to stave off the horror of the fact that Mommy tried to kill herself – as well as the misguided feeling that it may somehow be her fault. The young Narrator clearly knows what death is, of having a loved one “taken away forever,” after having her dog put to sleep while she held him in her arms (with another audience member playing the sympathetic vet who administers the lethal injection).
We also see how her mother’s depression affects her father, whose mood she can gauge based on what type of records he plays in his study. And while that may sound like a recipe for a terrible childhood, her father’s love of music also becomes the source of salvation and joy for the Narrator, as we see (and hear) throughout the performance. In fact, as maudlin as much of this material sounds, it’s quite the opposite. Playwright Duncan MacMillan has crafted a thing of joy from what appears to be an autobiographical piece (but isn’t).
We get to witness her falling in love (wonderfully played by Krstansky, who is aided in part by the amazingly upbeat “Move On Up” by Curtis Mayfield) and express that awesome feeling in one of the play’s many great lines, “For the first time in my life I understood the lyrics of pop songs”. We also experience her getting married, only to see it crumble as she struggles with the same disease that plagued her mother. But as the decades pass, the list grows and grows (with audience members reading off the various “brilliant things”), until it reaches over one million – many of which are insightful and clever, others just silly and fun.
There are elements of the show that verge on being just a little too precious, such as when she announces her intent to “high-five the entire room” (thankfully she doesn’t), but there is enough weighty material to forgive that excess. We also miss some of the “brilliant things” being read by the audience, as some fail to project the lines with appropriate volume. But these are minor quibbles.
This show is very funny throughout, thanks in part to the sometimes awkward, sometimes unexpectedly clever participation by the audience (although it certainly didn’t hurt that at least two of the random audience members were nominated for IRNEs this year at the performance I attended). But it isn’t necessarily the humor that elevates this play, it’s the pain beneath.
You don’t necessarily have to have had a suicide (or an attempt) by a loved one in your life to feel the anguish of the Narrator, and I found myself with wet eyes at one point during the performance. I thought it may have had to do with my own identification with the powerlessness that one feels when dealing with a loved one’s depression, but I looked around the room and saw that I wasn’t the only one who was moved. Surprisingly, there is little in the story that is overwhelmingly sad, even when her worst fears are realized, but there is an undercurrent of melancholy that propels much of the laughter, much like an Irish wake. First time director Marianna Bassham (one of Boston’s best actresses) finds the right tone for the material, and Krstansky (true to form) delivers. In the end, though, it is the hope of the gratitude list that stands out. Maybe the list should include one more item: Every Brilliant Thing. For more information and tickets, go to: http://www.speakeasystage.com/
