Arden Theatre Company presents 'Every Brilliant Thing'

Anyone who decides to spend 60 minutes in the company of Greer’s unnamed narrator, who for much of the performance converses with the audience, will understand why. Greer brings an easygoing charm to the role, instantly disarming the crowd, which is asked to interact at various intervals. Even those terminally allergic to audience participation (yours truly) run the risk of conversion.

The card you're dealt

The evening begins with Greer approaching patrons as they take their seats and handing them a card, which they will read over the course of the play. I received #314: “The way Ray Charles sings the word ‘you.’” Bear with me — the meaning of this will become clear.

The information printed on these cards — ice cream, roller coasters, having a piano in the kitchen — are the brilliant things that give the play its title, an all-encompassing list of “everything worth living for.” We learn the narrator began creating the list at the age of seven, around the time his mother concluded that death might be preferable.

The play — written by Duncan Macmillan with Jonny Donahoe, and directed here with a subtle touch by Terrence J. Nolen — came to prominence at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and it retains the small-scale intimacy for which that event is known.

You cannot leave the performance without a hyperawareness of theater as a place of shared experience. Greer certainly leads with a sense of community, ad-libbing and forming instant, relaxed bonds with the audience.

Shallow swim in deep waters

Yet I can’t help feeling Every Brilliant Thing takes a rather shallow approach to a serious subject. The idea that a parent’s depression or desperation could be assuaged by an encomium of life’s simple pleasures surely sounds like a child’s sweet fantasy. But as narrator and play mature, the dramaturgy turns to easily digestible sound bites about the beauty and value of life, masking a lack of insight into mental illness.

The narrator reads a lengthy list of things for journalists to avoid when reporting on suicide (don’t sensationalize, don’t describe the act in detail, etc.), somewhat out of nowhere. He spouts glib, feel-good catchphrases about how tomorrow will be a better day. He describes the “Werther Effect”: the idea that suicide is a contagion, originating from a spate of self-harm caused by Goethe’s novel The Sorrows of Young Werther (which the script describes, inaccurately, as a work of Victorian literature).

The narrator’s inner life, and the ways his mother’s ideations affected his move toward adulthood, remain mostly glossed over. There’s a failed marriage and the suggestion of emotional unavailability, along with hard-won insights into the value of therapy. But Macmillan and Donahoe don’t probe these topics. It’s a shame, because plenty of potentially interesting and honest material remains unexplored.

Greer compensates for these deficits with his innate likeability and poise, and the play surely resonates with many. (I noticed several teary-eyed patrons at the performance I attended). But I couldn’t help wishing Every Brilliant Thing were somewhat less brilliantly constructed and a bit messier, like the world it depicts.