Theatre for Normies: Every Brilliant Thing Review

If I wrote about every brilliant thing in Every Brilliant Thing, currently playing at the Hudson Theatre, this would be a very short review. Which is unfortunate. I like unique theatre that takes chances. I—like any good millennial—am fond of Daniel Radcliffe. I think that themes of mental health and suicide and grief and human connection are (obviously) fertile ground for impactful story. But throwing flour, sugar, eggs, and chocolate haphazardly into the oven and expecting a tasty cake to come out is folly.

Every Brilliant Thing is undeniably an unusual piece, at least for Broadway. It’s a one-performer—or at least one professional performer—show, told by a narrator (Daniel Radcliffe) about a list of "Everything in the world that is brilliant," which he began at age 9 after his mother’s first suicide attempt. The years go on, his mother dies by suicide, he faces his own struggles, and the list grows to a preposterous one million allegedly unique entries, written by the main character, his girlfriend, and countless others over the years. 

All the other characters in the story—the narrator’s father, his childhood therapist, his college girlfriend, the vet who euthanizes the family dog—are all played by audience members, whom Radcliffe himself selects throughout the preshow. More audience members are pressed into service to shout out different items from the list at the narrator’s cues. 

It's a bold level of audience interaction with the potential to do something interesting. Alas, Every Brilliant Thing just doesn’t execute. 

At its core, Every Brilliant Thing is theatre for normies, written for the lowest common denominator of audience member. In seeking to be meaningful to everybody, it strips itself of depth. Blend together a Rupi Kaur poem, a horoscope, and a smattering of angsty Tumblr posts, put the resulting pulp on a stage, and you’ve got Every Brilliant Thing— something resembling a piece of theater in form, if not quite substance.

Radcliffe, it should be said, does his best. Without his quirky, leprechaun-ish charisma, there's no way this production would have reached Broadway. It is impressive, in an almost technical way, how he tracks the audience members he selected before curtain, to better call on them at the right moment. And, like a late night show host straining to claw a decent interview out of a vapid guest, his efforts to improvise with his chosen amateurs are valiant, if not always successful.

But still, it's a tall order. No matter how many times you implore folks to speak loudly and clearly, when the moment comes to project out to a Broadway house full of strangers, many will falter. It’s tough to be unable to hear a good portion of the show. Especially if, as was the case when I attended, the narrator gives a significant role to someone particularly volume challenged. Maybe if the audience participation is just right, and everyone is very, very loud and speaks very, very slowly, you’ll catch lightning in a bottle. But even then, it’s tough to imagine Every Brilliant Thing being more than “decent.” 

Radcliffe’s celebrity is both the key to and the bane of the production. The house each night is full of over-eager fans vying for the chance to "act" alongside one of their favorites. The result is hammed up choices, like when an audience member, asked to name the imaginary dog about to be euthanized, pretends to think for a moment before exclaiming, "Harry!" It gets a laugh; it deserves a groan. Radcliffe, to his credit, handles such moments with grace. ("Thats an interesting name for a dog. What's his last name–THINK. VERY. CAREFULLY!") But the show is overpacked with such eye-rollers, because the audience is overpacked with folks who know what is coming, and want their Moment™. Even if a magic wand could fix the other problems, Every Brilliant Thing’s format and the celebrity that sells tickets sets an irremovable albatross around its own neck. Replacing Radcliffe with Mariska Hargety will not solve this problem, but rather will only replace ham-fisted Harry Potter jokes with clunky Law and Order ones. Maybe after Olivia Benson has had her fill they can get Mark Hammill for a spin, so we can stuff the script with stilted Star Wars references.

The show gets points for taking a swing at a bold format. Radcliffe gets points for doing his best to make it work. But overall, it is a capital-D Dud—much to my chagrin, a dud that seems likely to stick around as long as the producers keep finding celebrities with enough star power to put butts in the seats.