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Regional Reviews: Washington, D.C. Son of a Stand Up Comedian Also see Susan's reviews of Triumph of Love, The Liar and Sophisticated Ladies
The 70-minute performance, part rock concert and part musical, takes Goodman back to 1980s New York City when he was an aspiring rocker, a Scottish Jew with dreams of succeeding in musical theater. (A running joke refers to his planned rock musical adaptation of Death of a Salesman, to be titled—as he says—Willy, exclamation mark.) The show is roughly chronological, but also rather shapeless at times. Gordon recounts how, during the broiling hot New York summer of 1988, he met his future wife when they worked together in a restaurant. He touches on his difficult and brief earlier marriage, the growth of his relationship with Gordon, the influences of their respective parents—his father a clothing salesman who loved amateur theater, her mother a Holocaust survivor—and, ultimately, working things out around the time their first child was born (she's 21 now). Goodman, who looks a bit like actor Geoffrey Rush, brandishes his Scottish accent as he describes his eclectic musical influences (on one hand, Stephen Sondheim's Sunday in the Park with George; on the other, the Sex Pistols' Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols) and his lifelong interest in performing. He's an entertaining storyteller and a fine rock guitarist and singer, with strong support from Greg Holloway on percussion. MetroStage
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