Photo by Michael Brosilow
• Waking up with a purring cat next to your head
Every Brilliant Thing, Duncan MacMillan’s poignant, humorous, and just plain wonderful look at dealing with the darkness in life (now playing at Writers Theatre), is one of the best shows of the year. I’d be stunned if anyone could watch it without becoming emotionally entwined in its story and relating it to their own lives.
It’s just perfect theatre.
Writers’ rejuvenated Gillian Theatre has been set up like a suburban backyard in Izumi Inaba’s scenic design, and that warm, familiar, casual feeling pervades the entire production. Jessie Fisher, who is returning to a Chicago stage after spending several years starring on Broadway, greets patrons with a smile and, as she wanders the audience pre-show, hands them slips of paper on which are written examples of the “brilliant things” in our world. (Mine, which elicited laughter when I read it, was: “Peeing in the ocean when nobody will know.”) These small—and large—pleasures are part of the heavy audience participation of the show: Fisher may be the only professional performer here, but we are all part of a quiet collaboration with her as her unnamed character tries to make sense of life’s confusion.
- The flashlight flickering of fireflies
- Accidental alliteration
One of the first things we learn is that Fisher’s character’s mother—I’m just going to make life easy the rest of the way and give the character her name—was a severely depressed woman who tried on multiple occasions to kill herself. The first attempt came when the little girl was only seven years old—hardly an age for comprehending something as vast as depression and death. So she tries to process it in a simplistic, childish way: she creates a list of the many “brilliant things” in life in order to cheer her mother up. Beginning with “#1: ice cream,” her list grows as she does, and its entries become more complex as she ages.
• The almost unbelievable migration of monarch butterflies
This is only the surface, though, of the audience participation. Fisher taps several audience members to play more significant roles from a college lecturer and a therapist to her lover and her father; she provides lots of guidance, so there’s nothing scary here. It’s all a part of the play’s dedication to exporting its emotional messages directly to its viewers by making us a part of it and investing us with some sense of ownership for the story. In addition to conflating Fisher with her unnamed character, then, we fold ourselves into the experiences so they become ours as well.
• The combination of sea salt and dark chocolate with a glass of red wine
Fisher is a truly engaging, genuine actress. Her reactions throughout the play are honest and open, from her laughter when things are funny to the pain in her eyes when darkness comes. As a surrogate for the audience, we could not possibly ask for better. In her interactions with the audience “characters,” it’s easy to believe she is reliving real moments. (In this area, she was blessed on opening night with audience performers who seemed perfect for their roles and, though they had no idea what was coming, were able to slide right in beside her as these people from her past. The lecturer, who discusses a German book, actually turned out to be German! Even Fisher was amazed by that one.)
- The recognition of the role of serendipity in our lives
- The word “serendipity”
There is an undercurrent of darkness in this play. It is, after all, about suicide and a child growing up in a house in which that event is always a possibility. Ultimately, though, like the warmth of Fisher’s smile, something bright can come from the shadows. She and director Kimberly Senior concentrate on the brightness that Macmillan’s lovely play brings into the world. And the most brilliant thing of all is that the uplifting center of this play, the list itself, while bounded by numbers, is essentially never-ending. By the end of the play its entries are in the millions. I’ve added to it throughout this review, and each audience member undoubtedly will conjure her own list of things that make the world brilliant. This is one of those plays destined to remain with me for a very long time.
- The smell of rain
- Knowing that this smell has a name: petrichor
- Every Brilliant Thing at Writers Theatre
Every Brilliant Thing is now playing at the Writers Theatre, 325 Tudor Ct, Glencoe through Jan 5. Check the website for specific dates, times, and tickets. Find more information about current plays in our front page recs and at theatreinchicago.com.