"Every Brilliant Thing" is a Bold Experiment in Creating Connections

Photo by Ross Zentner.

It is virtually impossible not to begin making your own list of wonderful, joyful things, after seeing Every Brilliant Thing, by Duncan Macmillan and Jonny Donahoe. The third play in Forward theater’s 2019-2020 season is a one-person show that is a meditation on suicide, mental illness, family, pain, and all of the things in the world that counteract that pain. In fact, it is about a list of one million things that make life extraordinary.

Antique typewriters
The way babies smell
Palomino Blackwing pencils
No Shame Theatre

During my college days at the University of Iowa, I was an avid attendee of No Shame Theatre, a student-run open mic that took place in an otherwise empty Theater B at 11 o’clock on Friday nights. One week, a student I knew wrote a sketch about the best and worst ways to die. The best way to go was through a testosterone overdose. (We were college kids, after all.) The worst way was by tripping over your own two stupid feet and falling face first into the silverware rack of an open dishwasher, because not only was your death pointless, but then someone had to do the dishes again. This illustrated to me that talking about death onstage could be very funny. It was less funny a few years later, when the author committed suicide by hanging himself.

This is the province of Every Brilliant Thing. For a play that is about suicide at its core, the piece is extremely funny. And then there are the other moments. It is a credit to David Daniel, the sole actor in the piece, that the story he pieces together for us is such an engrossing, delicate and compelling tale. Using a string of  anecdotes about a mother with mental illness, a distant father, and the emotional confusion of his childhood and adolescence, he speaks candidly about the tragedy of untreated mental illness, of suicide and the effect of a sudden loss on family and friends.

Daniel, a core company member at American Players Theatre, also takes many opportunities to be silly. He shouts to the rafters about the pleasure of the color yellow and the intense satisfaction of pulling an entire piece of wallpaper off a wall, intact. At one point he maniacally announces he is going to high five the entire audience — and then gives it his absolute, best try. Exhausted, he lies down on the tan braided rug that is most of the set and revels in the simple pleasure of sweating profusely in public. When an audience member reads one of his favorite “brilliant things” off a slip of paper, he frequently emits a high pitched wheeze of delight. Occasionally he exudes the energy of a motivational speaker, selling his brand of “Chicken Soup for the Soul” stories to be happy about. It’s the juxtaposition of these stories and the vulnerability of the man telling you these stories that really sets Every Brilliant Thing apart.

A great euchre hand
Jeans that fit like an old friend
The art deco Metro signs in Paris
Sharing great tapas with foodie friends

Music, masterfully designed and composed by Joe Cerqua, also plays a large role in this show. It is evocative of both pleasant and terrible memories, it takes the place of conversations that were desperately wished for, it telegraphs the mood of the main character’s father, and it is a way for him and his father to find refuge and peace — by listening to vinyl records (the sound quality is really better, you know) while reading the liner notes from the sleeve. The show starts with the song “I Love You More Than You’ll Ever know,” and music weaves its way in and out of the list of “brilliant things,” including the way Ray Charles sings the word “you” and the way his-then fiancé sang “Some Things Last a Long Time.” 

Photo by Ross Zentner.

By transforming Overture’s Playhouse Theater into a theater in the round, with several rows of seating on risers placed on the stage, director Tyler Marchant has created a flexible playground for Daniel. He spends some time in the small center of the oval playing space, along with a record player and a chair, but Daniel also frequently leaps up into the aisles — all of the aisles — and even inserts himself in a seat mid-row to have a conversation with an audience member. His moments of frenetic movement are energizing. His moments of stillness are arresting.

At a time when theaters are trying to define for prospective audiences why going to a live theater event is still exciting, worth the time and money, different from anything you can experience on Netflix, Every Brilliant Thing is a perfect answer. It is communal. The lights never go down. The audience is present, and quickly forms a bond as a select group on a journey together. But unlike a snarky stand-up routine, the participants are never the butt of the joke. They are treated as fellow travelers who are necessary for the play to continue. And perhaps the most poignant message of the play is that when you are on the spot, when you need them the most, complete strangers will be there for you.

There was much laughter and chagrin on opening night when one of the audience members was asked to borrow a sock from her seatmate, put it over her hand and create a talking dog puppet. But she did it without hesitation and ad-libbed in character without being prompted. Another unwitting audience members was asked to play the main character’s father early in the performance. His tasks started out small: pretend to be driving; repeat the same line over and over. Then they grew more daunting. He was thrust center stage into a spotlight, given a microphone and asked to give an impromptu father-of-the-groom speech. He looked nervous. He stumbled a couple of times, but he managed it with grace and aplomb. He also looked really relieved when he returned to his seat. 

When the man was called on a third time to simply say “I love you,” he hesitated. Perhaps he didn’t hear it correctly. Perhaps the gravity of the line gave him pause. Perhaps he was so startled by being called on a third time, he didn’t have any capacity left for playing along. David Daniels held firm. Staring straight at the man, with the confidence of a proud son looking up at his father, he motioned with his hand saying please, please say this to me. And after a small pause, the man did. And the show went on.

This will not be the experience for every audience member. By design, each performance will be individual. It will have its own quirks, its own stutters, its own characters, its own unintentionally funny ad-libs, created jointly by the unique moment the audience encounters the material and the unflappable, quick wit of David Daniel. But the idea that someone you just met would be so willing to say the words you need to hear in order to go on is beautiful in its simplicity and its power.