Harry Clarke is a 40(?)-something bloke from Ellstree, the village north of London where the film studios are located, now living it up in swinging style in upper Manhattan. Or so he professes, in the person of Billy Crudup, in David Cale’s one-man play Harry Clarke. Crudup gives a performance that is altogether enchanting and decidedly bravura. Now, all one-person plays are by definition built around bravura performances, or they’d better be. Even so, Crudup makes a richly delectable night of it, on the level—if you must compare it to something—of Michael Urie in Buyer & Cellar. Crudup and Harry Clarke are every bit as special, and just as unmissable.
It is Cale’s conceit that an 8-year-old Midwestern lad—bullied and labeled gay by an abusive brute of a father—shields his psyche by developing a British accent and a British persona. (“I could be myself if I had a British accent,” he reasons, staring forlornly at the Indiana sky.) As soon as his parents die, Philip Brugglestein hotfoots it out of South Bend and ensconces himself in Manhattan, with enough of an inheritance in his bank account to present himself to one and all as a displaced Londoner of the seedy Hugh Grant variety.
This conceit is charming enough, and workable enough, to support an evening. Whether it psychologically holds water, or ale, it’s hard to say; but it sure provides a firm basis for an evening of theatrical delight. And a springboard for Crudup to breeze through a 90-minute performance which we might find astonishing if the actor weren’t so irresistibly charming.
Cale has the character speaking to us as Harry, mostly; Philip comes in only occasionally, typically when he expresses admiration (or apprehension) of what Harry is up to. “Why is it that when I’m myself I’m so fearful all the time, so wrapped up in what people are thinking about me? But when I’m Harry Clarke I don’t give a shit. I’m absolutely, exhilaratingly, alarmingly free.”
But this is no one-person two-hander. Harry is a born raconteur, and personably recounts everyone he comes across. (That Harry/Philip is really a never-even-been-in-England lad is apparent from the strong American accents Crudup provides for these encounters.) There are about 20 distinct voices here: Crudup slips through them, sometimes intermingling the characters in conversations (interrupted by constant audience laughter) with facility so great that we are removed from the reality of sitting in a theater looking at one actor alone on a practically bare stage. Leigh Silverman (of Violet, Well, and the recent Sutton Foster Sweet Charity) directs with such skill that her work is invisible; Crudup glides through with no contrivance or crutches in evidence.
Neither is this a mere “charm” show: The moodily melodramatic snatches from Georges Delerue soundtracks, heard intermittently, point to the fact that Harry plunges himself into something of an erotic thriller of his own making. And yes, there is what you might describe as sexual content. He speaks to us from a deckchair on a wooden deck against a drop of Seychellian blue, with no trappings except a small side table and a large glass of water. (The scenery is by Alexander Dodge.) We don’t know or need to know where we are until play’s end, at which point the setting is perfectly supported.
Harry Clarke originated at the Vineyard just before Thanksgiving, where it was instantly embraced and twice extended. Audible, the publisher of downloadable audiobooks, recorded the play and has sponsored the return engagement at the Minetta Lane. This is part of their promotion plan, I suppose; but all things being equal, they could well turn a profit on the engagement. The audiobook is no doubt a joy, and shall entertain customers for years to come. But Billy Crudup on stage in Harry Clarke makes a treasurable evening in the theater, so you might well want to head on down to Washington Square.
Harry Clarke opened March 18, 2018 at the Minetta Lane Theatre and runs through May 13. Tickets and information: harryclarkeplay.com
