‘Every Brilliant Thing’ @ Dallas Theater Center
—Hannah Kneen
Sitting down for an evening of theater—and being presented with your own part to play—is an unusual experience. Don’t worry: most of us in the audience were only granted a small part of a few words or less; and while some were chosen to do a bit more, we could, of course, decline to participate. But really, where’s the fun in that?
The Dallas Theater Center’s Every Brilliant Thing, by Duncan Macmillan with Jonny Donahoe, is playing through most of March at the Wyly Theatre in the Arts District. It’s a one-person show, and DTC favorites Tiffany Solano and Blake Hackler alternate in the single role. I saw and enjoyed Solano’s portrayal, and am told the two versions differ a fair bit (for those who might want to see both).
The premise of EBT is relatively simple. At six years old, our narrator goes to the hospital because (according to her father) her mother, who struggles with chronic depression, has “done something stupid.” Our narrator goes home and begins a list of every brilliant thing in the world that makes it worth living in. (Just to clarify, the British term “brilliant” means something like wonderful, great, fabulous.)
As the narrator grows up, the list grows with her.
Helping “grow” that life-encouraging list is one of the biggest ways the audience gets to participate in the show. Before the show, many of us had a brief encounter with the performer, who handed us a numbered slip of paper with a word or phrase on it—one “thing” from the list. Our job was to call out the item when the performer called out the number: #1, ice cream; #5, things with stripes; #25, wearing a cape; #381, water fights. We chimed in with everything from watching people fall down to falling in love to reading the notes on the sleeves of vinyl record albums.
One of the nicest things about the whole show was looking around at fellow audience members and seeing them smiling about whatever “brilliant” thing came out next.
While the play handles dark subjects it is not dark itself, but rather filled with light and thoughtfulness. The struggles the narrator’s mother faces—and the impact they have on the narrator—are very serious, but they are handled with extreme care, as they should be. The narrator actually reads out some simple rules about how to properly discuss suicide in media and the play follows the guidelines well, without ever diminishing the complexity of the issue.
The stage at the Wyly is set up in a thrust configuration (audience on three sides). The first seats are at floor level, with shallow risers behind them. Many of the chairs are mismatched and interspersed with small tables holding books and lamps. The set design by John Slauson gives the room a rather homey atmosphere that suits the conversational tone of the play and lets the performer mingle with the audience.
Caroline Hodge’s lighting design is very subtle but suits the show well. The audience does not sit in the dark as in most plays. Instead, the whole room is well lit, with the greatest changes being minor color shifts angled onto the walls behind the audience. It’s an interactive play space, set up in such a way that audience members are close to the performer and can see each other clearly, creating a lively sense of community. It’s surprisingly fun. And definitely unconventional.
Director Sally Nystuen Vahle has made something really golden with DTC’s Every Brilliant Thing. Tiffany Solano’s performance is lovely. On the night I came, she easily drew us into her world and made us a part of it–and what a world it was. This show would definitely make it on my list of brilliant things.
WHEN: Mar 9–24, 2024
WHERE: Dee and Charles Wyly Theatre, Dallas Arts District
WEB: https://dallastheatercenter.org/shows/every-brilliant-thing/
