Love is patient. Love is kind. Love is complicated... Simon Rich's new play, All In: Comedy About Love has arrived on Broadway, bringing a series of hilarious stories about dating, heartbreak, marriage and that sort of thing. Directed by Alex Timbers, it is read live by some of the funniest people on the planet, with different groups of four taking the stage each week.
What's it all about? Sometimes they play pirates, sometimes they play dogs, and there’s one where they talk in British accents. But even though the show’s kind of all over the place, it’s meant to tell one simple story: that the most important part of life is who we share it with. Everybody will relate to it, even if it was their date’s idea to come and they are starting out from a place of quiet resentment.
The complete, rotating company includes Mulaney, Fred Armisen, Renée Elise Goldsberry, Richard Kind, Chloe Fineman, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Aidy Bryant, Andrew Rannells, Nick Kroll, Jimmy Fallon, David Cross, Annaleigh Ashford, Tim Meadows, and Hank Azaria.
The play features music by the acclaimed musical duo The Bengsons, perfroming songs by The Magnetic Fields.
It’s anything but a stagnant affair, at least. As the stars pantoimine and read, their voices inhabit colorful characters. Some beats may land as treacly, but the stories contain plenty of zippy lines and outlandish, cartoon-inspired shenanigans. A short story that grabs hearty laughs is one where a talent agent (Kind) persuades the Grim Reaper (Armisen) to try acting. Projected images illustrated by Emily Flake add additional humorous imagination to the show.
All four actors sit on chairs facing the audience, playing a gallery of different characters featured in each story, such as the little boy in “The Big Nap” imagining himself as the put-upon Chandler-esque gumshoe, surveying dark shadows and malign intent everywhere, while Rich makes clear to the audience it’s the little boy’s grandma just taking care of him and his baby sister Zoe (Goldsberry) while their parents are away: “We still don’t know why Mama and Dada went away this weekend, or where they went, or what they did there. We don’t know why they go to work, or what work is, or why they both have glasses.”
2024 | Broadway |
Original Broadway Production Broadway |
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