Award-winning comedian and storyteller Mike Birbiglia returns to Broadway this fall with a tale of life, death, and a highly chlorinated YMCA pool. Birbiglia takes the stage at the esteemed Vivian Beaumont Theater at Lincoln Center to chronicle his coming-of-middle-age story that asks the big questions: Why are we here? What’s next? What happens when the items at the doctor’s office that you thought were decorative become functional?
The Old Man and the Pool, which played to sold-out houses in Berkeley, Chicago and Los Angeles, resonates with audiences ages 12 to 112. It’s a hilarious reminder for all of us recovering from failing bodies and a flailing world that laughter is indeed the best medicine.
Get tickets now, and remember: Mike’s here for a good time, not a long time. This strictly limited Broadway engagement ends December 30.
You could also consider the rehashing of certain stories and themes as part of a large-scale autobiographical enterprise. Catching up with him at regular intervals, we are watching the construction of a lifelong narrative arc. It's a bit like a comic, one-man version of the Michael Apted documentary series 'Up,' a decades-long project in which that director caught up with the same group of people at seven-year intervals. I, for one, am looking forward to hearing about Birbiglia's next medical tests, not to mention how he is going to spin tales of Oona's growing up.
We are all charmed, beguiled. He says he does not have a swimmer's body, but a drowner's body. The Brooklyn YMCA is less a building than a smell, he conveys in one barnstorming riff. Birbiglia finds humor in everything around him-and tells it so smoothly he makes it look effortless. This ease on stage is a good camouflage of an ingenious comic technician. This is not the lackadaisical piece of theater it seems, but tightly constructed and wittily performed.
Videos