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.
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.
Birbiglia has a way of swallowing his punchlines, of going off in tangents that circle back to hard truths, that signal his gift for shaping an overarching narrative within the confines of the stand-up form. Yes, there are jokes - like his comedic complaint about how Airbnb's are guilty of false advertising for failing to deliver breakfast - but many serve as popcorn kernels strewn along the path to his larger point. (A point that he often then subverts with a perfectly timed punchline.) When you're in the good company of Birbiglia, after all, it feels perfectly normal to laugh in the face of death.
2022 | Broadway |
Broadway Production Broadway |
Year | Ceremony | Category | Nominee |
---|---|---|---|
2023 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding Solo Performance | Mike Birbiglia |
Videos