Brainsongs, or the Play About the Dinosaur Farm
Through Jan. 28 at the Yale Cabaret. http://yalecabaret.org/
Created and performed by Gabe Levey. “Made in collaboration with” Kate Atwell, Molly Bernard and Cole Lewis. Set: Meredith Ries. Lights: Yi Zhao. Costumes: Nikki Delhomme. “Technical Directions”: Kenny Thompson. “Stage Managements”: Brandon Curtis.
The comic archetype of the innocent man-child didn’t begin with Pee Wee Herman—or Pinkie Lee, or Ed Wynn, or any number of other wide-eyed wonderers with cool stuff to show off. Gabe Levey’s Brainsongs or The Play About the Dinosaur Farm has areas in common with Andy Kaufman (a variation on the classic Mighty Mouse lipsynch), The Little Rascals (the tincan footlights which line the stage) and Steven Wright (whose lanky physique he shares). Yet Levey doesn’t truck in one-liners or elaborate comic set-ups or . His forte is the silent reaction to the world around him. He is a master of the fine art of the quivering lower lip.
In his 45-minute solo set, Levey operates the way a stand-up comic might. He has formal routines, but he’ll acknowledge how each particular audience is dealing with them. He also had a running gag where he singles out someone in the front row with which to silently share confusion, exasperation and annoyance strictly through eye contact. (At the late Saturday performance, that lucky person was me.)
But in dramatizing adult-bodied childlike innocence, Gabe Levey brings a new element to the table. Instead of the obliviousness and garrulousness we associate with such characters, he offers awareness and calm. His images can be as challenging as they are funny—a man making out with an in inflatable dolphin, for instance. There’s a private intensity to this exploration of youthful yearnings that makes you laugh with Levey and not at him. When he mimes to the ’20s jazz standard “I Can’t Dance (I’ve Got Ants in My Pants),” in his too-short pants and bow-tie tied as a straight tie, he makes a serious show of not dancing. Later in the show, the sky opens up (in a glorious dime-store phosphorescent effect) and Levey luxuriates in the wide, open space—not frantically like Pee Wee Herman, not awkwardly like Kaufman, not squeakily like Ed Wynn or herky-jerky like Pinkie Lee. Levey’s character has bliss and zen, and you feel it.
There is a Dinosaur Farm in the show, by the way. And a host of new planets, celebrated in song on that most toy-like yet expressive instrument, the ukulele. Such are the Brainsongs, an internal travelogue of wonder and delight shared because such things really ought to be.