A Life
Written by Adam Bock
Directed by Anne Kaurrman
Playwrights Horizons
November 26, 2016
Production website
💉💉💉💉 out of 5.

There are times I want to use these blogs to become one giant spoiler. This is so true of this play! You think the play is going to stay in this very naturalistic world of “a life in the day.” and then the play and most significantly, the set, does a 180 and another 180 and quite literally another 180. I mean literally!

There is so much to love in the first half of the play as we sit at the foot of the couch of Nate Martin as he confides with the audience so personally of what it is like to be a somewhat lonely fifty something gay man in NYC. You would expect the cliche from this description. You would be wrong. Every reference to astrology, self-help groups, loneliness, and anonymous sex seems to fresh. David Hyde Pierce is just SO simple, SO winsome, and SO engaging that I could sit at the foot of his couch and listen forever. I found the talk of astrology as a component of mental heath and self-discovery to be compelling. Do people still get their “charts” done? I wonder.

Now what to say without spoiling the show. Let’s just say that there is a significant death, graphic autoposy, and a wonderful set of prosaic poetry on the meaning of life. Damn, I wish you could all run out and see it – – so that I could chat with you about all of the unexpected fireworks of the story – but trust me. You will want to see this. You will find no better theatre in NYC this weekend than Heisenberg and A Life. Theatre – non-musical theatre – is very much alive in the big city.