Underbelly Bristo Square
Four stars
Everybody’s welcome in American writer John Kolvenbach’s play. This is made clear by the grizzled old guy standing at a desk on the stage throughout as he invites the audience to join him in communing with - well, pretty much everything, really.
As the man engages with us directly, what follows might initially be mistaken as a freeform riff that is part performance lecture, part pop psychology self help routine, and part private confessional. While there are hints of all these things at play over the show’s 55-minute duration, what emerges out of Kolvenbach’s meticulously crafted text is a collective cry for help that lays bare the basic human need to connect.
To be clear here, this is no angst filled hippy indulgence. Rather, in Kolvenbach’s own production, presented here by Boston’s Huntingdon Theatre Company, what you get is a near Beckettian tragicomic meditation on life, love and loss born of the solitary confinement enforced by the devastating effects of the turn of the decade Covid pandemic.
As performed by Broadway and American TV regular Jim Ortlieb, what you get by way of his avuncular delivery is something that amplifies the play’s profound sense of human warmth. As eccentric an oddball as the man might be, there is a life of wisdom and experience there, and at the heart of the matter is a desire to speak with us, even as he, like us, must come to terms with his losses.
Out of all the enforced loneliness, the man seems to be saying, the time is now. All you have to do is embrace the moment and breathe. Life will surely follow.
The Herald, August 7th 2026
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