My overall impression
“Small Parts” was ‘love at first gesture’. Richard Tanner grabbed the audience instantly and never let us go. And what a beautiful bond it was! I haven’t laughed so continuously in years. But this laughter always took me to the right place! To understanding? Yes. To forgiveness of those who have cut your heart out of your chest – thrown it away , then walked away? Yes. Tenderness that heals those little sores that have been there it seems from the beginning? Yes again. I will never forget Richard’s recollection of a conversation with his father in a boat. Or was it a conversation at all? No, it was a gateway to everything – the rabbit hole that led Richard to the unthinkable – the life of an actor that has resembled the lives of millions: a wonderland of impossibles that never stop giving, never stop jabbing, never stop instructing with a whip of the mind, honing all of it across time – inevitably – into a luminous acting coup. In this one-man show he reminds us – nothing can replace the courage of a living performance.
With art – real art – and magic that can only be captured in a theatrical space – he suspended words like stars in the sky – the timing of a magician – provoking far more than just laughter – guiding us down long trails of emotions leading to those old, old questions that never get answered save in the laughter itself, the tenderness, the care that is strong enough to transform the agony of an actor’s solitary journey into a spell-binding, relentlessly insightful exposition of what seethes and aches in all of us in this crazy, beautiful land. And hey – after the whole theatrical flight – when you are brought back down to land, Richard lands you on your toes – with sprightliness. The bond is there to stay.
I have to thank Richard Tanner for a hilarious and touching night that will be with me on through the long, long nights ahead – the never-ending twists and head-bashings.
This is a piece that should be seen by everyone. Richard reminded me: ‘The soul is a magical land’. Everything is in it and somehow – with skill and ‘chronic wisdom’ he knocked a little hope – the real variety – into the heart. Trudge on – it is always, always worth it.
