Review Roundup: COLIN QUINN'S LONG STORY SHORT

Former "Saturday Night Live" and Comedy Central star Colin Quinn moves his one-man show Colin Quinn Long Story Short, directed by Jerry Seinfeld, to Broadway's Helen Hayes Theatre for an 11-week limited engagement. Preview performances began on Friday, October 22nd and will officially open on Tuesday, November 9th. The production will play through Saturday, January 8th.

Colin Quinn Long Story Short proves that throughout human history, the joke has always been on us.??The New York Post says of this summer's critically acclaimed Bleecker Street Theatre production that it's "historical and hysterical. While he dutifully traces his saga from the caveman era to the present, Quinn happens to be very, very funny. Clearly benefited from Seinfeld's influence, with tight pacing and a procession of hilarious one-liners," while NY1 says, "The humor is infused with plenty of witty insights...even wisdom. 

Charles Isherwood, NY Times: The evening's themes are not exactly new. That humankind has been consumed in mayhem and folly ever since we started walking upright - and probably even before - is obvious to anybody who's glanced at a history book. Our propensity for destruction has been a source of cackling amusement at least since Aristophanes and the age of classical comedy. But if Mr. Quinn's ideas aren't novel, they're definitely immortal. And this easygoing alumnus of "Saturday Night Live" brings his own distinctive every-guy's perspective to the galumphing march of civilization toward - well, toward whatever it is we are approaching, as Blanche DuBois so lyrically put it.

Jesse Oxfeld, NY Observer: Mr. Quinn is funniest when he's finding unexpected connections. Economists missed the impending collapse, he suggests, because they hold their annual conference in Davos, Switzerland: "It's Plato's cave theory, which was basically if you live in a cave and all you see are shadows outside, you think that shadows are what's real. So if they hold the economic summit in Switzerland, you walk out of the hotel, 'Hey, things look pretty good. I'll see you next year.'"

Scott Brown, NY Magazine: There's no wall to be seen in Long Story Short, aside from the Great One. ("Work was China's drug. The one thing they couldn't figure out was how to stop working. That's why the Great Wall is so long. I'm sure it started off as just a wall. The next biggest wall in the world is fourteen feet long. Any other place, a contractor gets to that length and says, "You don't need more than that, do you?")  Quinn and Seinfeld try hard to banish the spectre of Caroline's from the intimate Helen Hayes (where the comic's first Broadway outing, Colin Quinn: Irish Wake, played over a decade ago).

Elisabeth Vincentelli, NY Post: While Quinn starts off with cavemen, then proceeds to the Greeks, the Romans and so on, history is merely a pretext for loosely connected observations about various ethnic, religious and cultural characteristics. At least Quinn prefers gruff bafflement and old-school Brooklyn attitude to stereotype-based hostilities.

David Rooney, Hollywood Reporter: While full-length stand-up acts tend to jump from place to place, Quinn and Seinfeld have worked with skill to shape the material into a fluid discourse in the manner of monologists such as Spalding Gray or Mike Daisey.

Linda Winer, Newsday: In a country where more and more people get their news from Jon Stewart, what's so unthinkable about getting our world history from Colin Quinn? To say we could do worse - a lot worse - is meant only as praise for "Colin Quinn: Long Story Short," the mostly smart and shrewd little stand-up comedy/psychopolitical history lesson.

Michael Sommers, NJ Newsroom: Spinning through the history of the civilized world in 75 clever minutes, Quinn claims society's bad habits today basically stem from our genetic pool. "Our ancestors are not the people who starved to death waiting for their turn on line," he says. Aside from adding some fancier visuals and making a few tweaks to the nicely-shaped text, Quinn and his smart director, Jerry Seinfeld, present the same entertaining show I reviewed last August.

Joe Dziemianowicz, NY Daily News: But cramming a couple of thousand years of material into a one-act is no mean feat. He tends to rush, trailing off before he finishes thoughts and sentences. Otherwise, it's a polished act. And with Broadway prices for an act that's just an hour and change, it should be.

Robert Feldberg, NorthJersey.com: Things go somewhat better at his new stand-up show, "Colin Quinn Long Story Short," which opened Tuesday night at the Helen Hayes Theatre - although I can't say I've become a big fan.

 

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