NEW YORK—The thought of death or, to be more specific, the end of one’s life can be quite overwhelming, especially when you realize it can happen without any warning whatsoever. The cause could be a heart attack, a coconut to the head, or simply holding one’s breath for too long at the wrong moment.
This is the premise explored in comedian Mike Birbiglia’s latest one-person work, “Mike Birbiglia: The Old Man & The Pool.” Written and performed by Birbiglia, the show is an alternatively introspective and humorous effort on the subject of confronting one’s own mortality. This is quite a delightful experience; I can’t remember the last time I laughed so hard at the theater, and it can now be seen at the Vivian Beaumont Theater at Lincoln Center Theater.
The performance begins after Birbiglia congratulates the audience for being able to find the venue; he then recounts a recent visit to the doctor where he got some potentially disturbing news, information which serves as the starting point for a series of musings on life, death, and a number of things in between.
Important Issues
In addition to talking about his family medical history (both his father and grandfather suffered heart attacks at age 56), as well as his own personal, ongoing health issues, Birbiglia also contemplates many memories and issues he faced in his life: swimming at his local YMCA and his first visits there as a child, a wariness of the power of social media and the dangers of being quoted out of context, his being a husband and father, and his thoughts about the medical profession in general (“I’ve never enjoyed the term ’second opinion.' I was under the impression this first analysis was fact-based. I didn’t know we were taking swings in the dark.”). He relates all of this before returning to the starting point of the narrative, where he is able to seamlessly tie the entire verbal journey together.Birbiglia, who can best be described as an unkempt, good-natured sort, always seems to have a little smile on his face when he speaks. It’s as if he’s privy to a secret no one else knows, but one that he is eager to share. His delivery calls to mind the lectures of Mark Twain, as well as Twain’s story “Jim Blaine and his Grandfather’s Ram.” Each comment he makes or joke he imparts, such as referring to a bus as “a slow ambulance with stops,” is delivered with the surgical skill of a master storyteller.
The secret mentioned above has to do with the realization that, since everyone’s life is finite and can literally cease at any moment, what’s most important is how one decides to use the allotted time which they have been given, however long or short it may turn out to be. This is an understanding far more important than continually being fixated on the million or so ways your existence might come to an end.
While Birbiglia certainly doesn’t try to make fun of death (even when he faux-admonishes the audience to “stop laughing” as he describes one of the more unusual ways it can happen), he does succeed in demystifying the issue a bit. Plus, in doing so, he also succeeds in making it feel perhaps just a touch less imposing.
Birbiglia clearly knows his audience and how his jokes will land for maximum effect and when. In one story, he relates a groaner of a pun about a penguin: The joke died when he told it to his three year-old daughter; he tells the Beaumont audience it’s OK not to laugh if it’s not to their taste.
There is also a self-deprecating nature to his delivery. He may protest a bit too much about what is the right thing for him to do in a given circumstance before eventually coming to accept the situation and doing what was suggested in the first place.
The direction by Seth Barrish is nicely underplayed here. He and Birbiglia have worked together many times before, and it shows as Barrish lets him have free rein with the material without allowing the performance to become either too maudlin or over the top with the subject matter. Just as important is how they make sure the story never strays so far off track that it can’t be pulled back, or goes on for too long.
Beowulf Boritt’s set offers an impressive backdrop of a swimming pool, which nicely works to set the story. The overall effect is helped tremendously thanks to some strong projection work by Hana S. Kim.
“Mike Birbiglia: The Old Man & The Pool” show just how precious life is and why it should never be wasted, a realization explored through the prism of Birbiglia’s rather unique perspective.
