After a half-dozen plays and musicals I’m used to seeing Daniel Radcliffe, The Artist Formerly Known as Harry Potter, onstage. But I didn’t expect him to usher me into the Hudson Theatre to view his latest, Every Brilliant Thing. The Hudson is where Radcliffe had his Tony-winning triumph in Merrily We Roll Along (beautifully pro-shot and available for streaming) and it’s now his literal stomping ground, as he circumnavigates the orchestra and mezzanine looking for audience members willing to participate. “Include me out,” as Hollywood producer Samuel Goldwyn used to say, not that I would ever sacrifice my critical objectivity for Daniel Radcliffe (Hugh Jackman or Audra McDonald, maybe). His crowd work is undeniably impressive, though (who could resist someone we’ve known and enjoyed since he was 11?), and by showtime he had wrangled a group for his one-man show with a few other people.
Every Brilliant Thing is easier to experience than explain. Festooned overhead in the lobby are notecards with words and phrases on them, like “hammocks” or “wearing a cape.” The interior has been rearranged into a sort of amphitheater, the easier to gather the “supporting cast,” as it were. Radcliffe’s character is a nameless Brit, enacting material drawn from the memories of writer and co-director Duncan Macmillan (with Jeremy Herrin) and creative consultant Jonny Donahoe, the comedian who co-created and originally performed the piece (and recorded it for HBO). Radcliffe brings just the right amount of star wattage to its Broadway debut, joyful but earnest, as the fun and games regarding the notecards are in service of a serious cause.
After a scene-setting introduction Radcliffe begins at age 7, bringing his dying dog to the vet to be euthanized. A grim beginning–but the dog is a raincoat, and the vet an audience member, administering the fatal dose (in the wrong place, as the actor points out, to audience laughter). Life gets tougher, as his mother has attempted suicide, and her lifelong depression is the backbeat of his life as his quiet father, ill at ease with her illness, retreats into the comfort zone of his record collection. (He’s not a bad guy, and the guy who played him did a good job dispensing clueless paternal advice.) To rally spirits our protagonist begins a list of joyful things, and at his prompt audience members call them out, one by one to a climactic one million (with, phew, many skips). The list starts simply, with childish delights like “ice cream,” then moves past material things as he ages, into university and first love and the challenges of adulthood. The thoughts on the cards get crazily dense at times (one participant had a devil of a time getting through some tongue-twisting existentialism) then slow, as his mother’s condition ripples through the years and interfere with his relationship. A new dog, “a black one, named Metaphor,” is introduced as it were, as the list and the cards are abandoned in a heap.
Well, OK, I admit, like everyone in the audience I did read one of the cards aloud, as it was slipped into the Playbill, and I got up and “danced” when a disco ball was introduced (the one spectacle element of Vicki Mortimer’s simple set, artfully illuminated by LD Jack Knowles, with supportive microphone work by sound designer Tom Gibbons). Part of the job. But Every Brilliant Thing isn’t about me, or, really, Radcliffe; it’s about the topics of suicide and depression, and their effect on community, like the makeshift one at the Hudson. (The show is partnered with Project Healthy Minds, identified as “a nonprofit dedicated to expanding access to mental health support and helping people find care that feels right for them.”) A worthy cause to be sure but the invaluable messaging blunts the dramaturgy; our nameless lead relays a vague story, shorn of details, that’s held together by the gimmicky numerology. I assume it’s this way to accommodate wherever the performer and improvisation takes it but even at a brisk 75 minutes or so it feels sketchy.
Hard as it is to believe the star is 36, and in full command of Every Brilliant Thing, summoning the show with, umm, a wizard’s touch. With unflagging energy he sings snatches of Ray Charles and Daniel Johnston and keeps in motion, part-talk show host, part-therapist, and part-cheerleader. The show means to put some good in the world, and I’ll add “Daniel Radcliffe” to the list of things that keep me going to the theater.
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