“#992: Knowing to jangle your keys while walking through the nature preserve so the otters will come out.” That was my spoken contribution to Duncan Macmillan’s Every Brilliant Thing, a solo show about finding reasons to live now in its Chicago premiere at Windy City Playhouse, where the incandescent Rebecca Spence is our tour guide and narrator. Before the play begins, Spence greets us and gives us numbered slips of paper with a reason—when we hear the number, we chime in. Unless we’re enlisted to play another character, such as the narrator’s father or veterinarian.
Spence, under Jessica Fisch’s direction, reinvents Macmillan’s British man into an American woman—one whose fear of turning out to be too much like her mother both motivates and stymies her interactions with others. But when it comes to making us all feel welcome and valued, this show is, well, brilliant. v
Through 12/8: Wed-Sat 7 PM, Sun 1 PM, Windy City Playhouse South, 2229 S. Michigan, 773-891-8985, windycityplayhouse.com, $55-$75.
