This play is a deeply personal one for Lithgow.
Neatly dressed and with a warm smile, he channels his audiences sense of anticipation upon entering the stage.
So what the hell is this?
Credit: Joan Marcus
he asks, knowingly, before guiding us through the shows most significant moments.
Lithgow takes on the role of an old-fashioned storyteller as he dictates every twist and turn.
This is ultimately a basic piece of theater that never really digs below its cozy, slightly drab surface.
Joan Marcus
There is no flourish here.
The two stories Lithgow chooses are Ring Larders tragicomic Haircut and P.G.
Wodehouses slapstick Uncle Fred Flits By.
Its that last detail, perhaps, which explains whyStories by Heartends up feeling so disjointed.
But the play itself is clunky and a smidge too earnest for its own good.
Its PBS-ified, childlike nature gives way to a sort of aimless simplicity.
His anecdotes about growing up and growing old feed into stories that hardly deal with those subjects.
The stories are also dramatically different from one another.
It was like the engine of an old car, starting up after years of disuse.
I kept reading and he kept laughing harder and harder, until he was almost out of breath …
It was the most wonderful sound.
Now thats how you tell a story.B-
