Playbill Pick: Every Brilliant Thing at Edinburgh Festival Fringe

Every Brilliant Thing is a hilarious and joyful play…about depression. And not in that chronically millennial fashion, where every symptom is ironically and cringely shared as something to celebrate.

In the work—back at Fringe for a revival 10 years after it debuted here—our nameless protagonist faces a distant father, a suicidal mother, and his own inexplicable deep sadness. And in a spark of childhood genius, he counteracts these obstacles by chronicling every brilliant thing in the world—first to cheer up his depressed mother, and later for friends, lovers, and himself. Those things include items ranging from simple pleasures (“ice cream,” “the color yellow” )to the far more specific and detailed (“old people who are kind and don’t smell unusual,” “the even numbered Star Trek
films”).

If this sounds like the premise of a saccharine novel one might pick up at an airport book shop, that’s not at all how it’s been executed here. The play is based on a short story by Duncan Macmillan, who worked on this dramatized edition with director George Perrin (Macmillan is at the helm for this revival) and comedian Jonny Donahoe. 

Donahoe, who originally starred in the solo show and is back this time around too, was responsible for bringing a great deal of semi-improvisatory crowd work from his stand-up experience into the performance. Audience members are called on to become various characters in the story. Many get handed cards before the show begins, each with an item from the play’s list of brilliant things. When Donahoe calls your number, you read the brilliant thing aloud.

All of this creates a disarmingly cheery air. Donahoe can somehow make an audience laugh while telling a story of his dog being euthanized in his own arms—and then jokily chastise the “vet” (an audience member, of course) for laughing too much while putting a little boy’s dog down. The titular brilliant things—anything but general, anything but saccharine—are as liable to get side-splitting laughter as they are loud approval from audience members who co-sign. It’s a funny, almost euphoric experience watching this wonderful play, especially when it’s performed as winningly and as charmingly as Donahoe.

At the same time, Every Brilliant Thing is a play about depression and mental illness. Even with Donahoe’s hilarious charm, the character experiences some real trauma. Beyond the death of his childhood dog, we see him deal with the aftermath of several of his mother’s suicide attempts, the painful end of a once soulmate-level relationship, and—worst—his mother succumbing to her lifelong mental illness. The list transforms from being a way to cheer up a deeply, inexplicably sad loved one to an altered world view, a refusal to ignore the things that bring us joy—no matter how small or seemingly insignificant (in its final state, the list comes to number 1,000,000).

And that’s the true genius, the next-level emotional I.Q.-part of this work. A lesser, more facile play would be tempted to make this list of wonderful things the Hail Mary for the deep sadness we all feel time to time. Every Brilliant Thing goes to great lengths to make it clear that it’s simply not that easy. Depression isn’t the simple result of something bad happening to you, nor is suicide. “Looking on the bright side” will not save us. But that also doesn’t mean there isn’t good, immense good, in working to remember and recognize the things that don’t make us despair.

The combination of that deep and heavy message and the levity of much of the performance makes Every Brilliant Thing somehow both more devastating and more life-affirming at the same time—which might just be the duality we have to walk to get through our darkest periods. Donahoe’s ability to walk this line—his dramatic work is as genuine and heartfelt as his comedy—is astonishing.

I’m far from the only person to realize this title’s merits. Since its original Fringe debut, the play has returned for several sold-out Fringe encores, along with playing London and, in 2014, Off-Broadway. To have Donahoe back—now with a fetching new beard—is a real treat, and one not to be missed. I left with tears in my eyes, but also feeling better about this bad old world than I have in a hot minute. After all, there are some pretty brilliant things almost anywhere you look.

Every Brilliant Thing is playing Summerhall’s Roundabout through August 24. For tickets, click here.