Andrew Martini

The music is entirely live-looped, meaning the show’s stars, Brian Quijada and Nygel D. Robinson, who also share credit for book, music & lyrics, create the music from scratch each night with the instruments scattered across Riw Rakkulchon’s industrial set. (Mikhail Fiksel is credited with looping systems architecture and sound design.) Before our eyes, we get to watch them create a song from the ground up—starting with an upright bass, then layering on top of that any number of instruments or practical sounds like stomping, clapping, or beat-boxing. It’s not only exciting to watch, it’s a theatrical high wire act that depends on the actors’ facility with the instruments and tech while still delivering a compelling story.

Amber Iman glows as the goddess in hiding. Her richly textured and far-reaching voice envelops the audience and makes it easy for us to imagine her as the goddess who is music. Iman has the numinous gravity of a being not of this world and the vulnerability of a mortal woman longing for love. It’s a sensational performance.

It’s there that Dead Outlaw really succeeds. For all its irreverence and comedy, Cromer and his team have ensured that we see Elmer’s posthumous life for what it really was: twisted and maddening in its lack of ethics. Elmer was no saint in real life. We’re not being asked to sympathize. Instead, Dead Outlaw reminds us that death comes for us all and what happens next…well, in America? The possibilities are frighteningly endless.

There’s a real, beating heart at the center of the show that elevates it above mere farce. Beneath the spoofs and gags, there’s an emotional depth that makes the comedy funnier and the satire sharper. While skewering the stuffy, educated British elite, SpitLip has done its due diligence by making room among the jokes to pay homage to the real man whose body was used as a pawn in a military operation.

At its best, All Nighter is a touching paean to female friendship, especially at an age when the “real world,” as the women refer to it, gets closer and closer. It’s a frightening time, especially when you’re 22 and you’re still not sure who you are.

As a predictable, foul-mouthed comedy, Shit. Meet. Fan. could work, especially with this top-tier cast, but it’s clear O’Hara has set his sights higher as both playwright and director. As his body of work will indicate, he is one of our best creative minds working in the theater today. Shit. Meet. Fan. doesn’t rise to the level we’ve come to expect.

In this production, directed by a tripartite directing team (Rob Ashford, Lucy Skilbeck, and Kenneth Branagah, one of our great contemporary Shakespeareans, who also stars as Lear), it’s a brisk unspooling. Having shaved the text down to a 2-hour running time with no intermission, the breakneck pacing doesn’t give the audience a chance to absorb the gravity of the drama or recognize the mounting stakes. One scene bleeds right into the next, which levels the play’s biggest moments.

Gadsby’s voice is singular and a welcome one in today’s comedy scene. Their particular blend of humor and cultural commentary elevates the form and takes it in a new direction, which makes it all the more difficult when WOOF! doesn’t quite rise to the level we’ve come to expect.