Old Hats
Mar 04, 2013 to May 09, 2013
$75
Official Site
“Make ‘em laugh, Make ‘em laugh, don’t you know everyone wants to laugh?” sang Donald O’Connor over 60 years ago in Singin’ in the Rain. Well, few people on the planet know how to make people laugh as hard, or as often, as those master clowns Bill Irwin and David Shiner. The delightful duo first proved that two decades ago in their previous collaboration, Fool Moon – and they do so again in their daffy, delicious new show, Old Hats, now at the Pershing Square Signature Center. And more amazingly, while we’re guffawing, they’re barely uttering a word.
This two-act, two-hour confection, smartly directed by Tina Landau, is comprised of a series of mostly silent sketches in which the pair let their remarkably agile limbs and rubbery faces do the talking (helped in no small part by G.W. Mercier’s smart sets and pitch-perfect costumes and Wendall K. Harrington’s clever projections). Watch them together pandering for votes, by whatever means necessary, in “The Debate,” which is a zillion times smarter or funnier than any of the political commentary currently found on Saturday Night Live; send up the sleaziest of illusionists in “The Magic Act” (in which the nearly 63-year-old Irwin looks shockingly good in drag as the magician’s jealous assistant); or exchange pills that do who knows what as a pair of frustrated commuters in “The Encounter.” If you don’t double over in hysterics, make sure you’re still breathing.
Irwin also shines in two clever solo spots: “Mr. Business,” in which an iPad almost steals the limelight from the brilliant funnyman, and “The Waiter,” a piece of old-fashioned silliness that still works, while Shiner takes center stage alone in the surprisingly touching “The Hobo.” He is also the focal point of the show’s final bit, “Cowboy Cinema,” a rather extended skit in which he plays the frazzled director of a silent Western movie, and which gains most of its guffaws from the participation of four audience members he recruits to play key roles in his fictional film.
Two’s company enough, to be sure, but let’s be grateful these guys also have a third, rather unlikely partner in crime: singer-songwriter Nellie McKay. Blessed with the face and voice of a 1930’s chanteuse and the razor-sharp wit of 2010 satirist, McKay (joined by a jazzy trio) not only entertains us between skits with a variety of ditties to make us smile, chuckle, and even think, but also acts a foil for the hilarious headliners – even managing to rein them in when they start to speak (and sing) in the second-act’s “Red Curtain.” She may be a newcomer to Shiner and Irwin’s game, but McKay proves to be an old pro in playing it.
Author: Brian Scott Lipton
Signature Theatre
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West 40s
480 W 42nd St
New York, NY 10036
(212) 244-7529
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