Press Review 1

Michael Kuchwara, Drama Critic, Associated Press

It’s not that far from comedy to tragedy, a distance traveled with remarkable skill in a shattering production of British playwright Peter Nichols’ “Joe Egg,” which the Roundabout Theatre Company has now thoughtfully revived in New York for a second time in nearly two decades.

In this new revival, the leads are Eddie Izzard and Victoria Hamilton playing Bri and Sheila, the embattled parents of a severely handicapped daughter. And the two actors, who starred in a London production last season, are revelations.

Izzard, best known as a stand-up comedian, perfectly inhabits the slouchy, wiseacre Bri, a quipster whose pain is hidden behind his comic punch lines; Hamilton’s sweet-tempered Sheila is heartbreaking, a woman who never quite gives up hope even when things are the bleakest.

The full title of Nichols’ play is “A Day in the Death of Joe Egg.” “Joe Egg” is the nickname given by the parents to their child, a brain-damaged, wheelchair-bound young girl unable to respond to the world around her - a vegetable given to spastic fits.

To cope with this situation, Bri and Sheila play games. So does the playwright. Nichols’ comedy-drama - or is it a drama-comedy? - indulges in freewheeling theatrics to brilliant effect. It often breaks the fourth wall, with the actors stepping out of the hideously and hilariously accurate re-creation of a late 1960s living room designed by Es Devlin to address the audience.

In those moments, there’s an almost vaudeville quality to the parents’ depiction of their desperate attempts to come to terms with Joe Egg’s existence, starting from her difficult birth. They demonstrate how they dealt with obtuse doctors, ineffectual clergy and with their own increasing fears that their child would never be normal.

The rapport between Izzard and Hamilton is positively symbiotic. One can’t imagine them playing as well off of other actors. Whether they are fighting with each other or making fun of their fragile situation, the two performers have an innate camaraderie that is touching.

Director Laurence Boswell, who also supervised the recent London revival, has done even better work here. It¹s a long play, two full acts, but the pace never lags.

Boswell also has assembled a terrific supporting cast, starting with young Madeleine Martin, who gives a terrifyingly realistic portrayal of the title character.

Act 2 becomes more traditional with Bri and Sheila confronting not only his disapproving mother (played to nagging perfection by Dana Ivey) but two friends, a husband and wife played by Michael Gaston and Margaret Colin. The husband, an old classmate of Bri’s, is patronizingly helpful. The wife is haughtily disdainful as they offer their opinions on what to do with poor Joe Egg.

Nichols’ play, first seen in London in 1967 and on Broadway the following year, is largely autobiographical. There’s a lacerating directness to its tale, particularly in Nichols’ refusal to sentimentalize a story that could be overwhelmed by emotion. Yet refusing to do so makes “Joe Egg” doubly rewarding.

That first Roundabout revival, which starred Jim Dale and Stockard Channing and which eventually made its way to Broadway, won a Tony Award for best revival in 1985. Judging from what Izzard, Hamilton and company have put on stage, this new edition stands a pretty good chance of repeating that success.