All This Noise
Through Feb. 23 at the Yale Cabaret, 217 Park St., New Haven. (203) 432-1566, www.yalecabaret.org
Created by Jackson Moran, with Ethan Heard, Kate Ivins and Martha Jane Kaufman. Additional text by Christopher Moran. Additional script development with Alyssa K. Howard, Jack Tamburri and Masha Tsimring. Director: Ethan Heard. Dramaturg: Martha Jane Kaufman. Scenic Designer: Souri Yazdanjou. Costume Designer: Seth Bodie. Lighting Designer: Masha Tsimring. Sound Designer: Matt Otto. Projection Designer: Nicholas Hussong. Stage Manager: Alyssa K. Howard. Producer: Kate Ivins. Cast: Jackson Moran (as himself, Christopher, Mary Tom, Tim, Bob, Caroline and Nancy)
Confession is good for the soul, and Jackson Moran confesses throughout this autobiographical one-man show about his brother Christopher’s lifelong issues with mental illness. In the show’s first moments, as the affable Moran easily ingratiates himself to the audience, he admits that he is an alcoholic and visits a Yale counselor regularly. This admission works in many ways: it’s a humanizing moment. It’s a worthwhile Public Service Announcement. And, dramatically, it neatly inserts an underlying theme of this play: that it’s often necessary to seek help.
All This Noise is full of confessions but, thankfully, not of guilt. Moran steps up nobly numerous times in this chronicle of his brother’s struggles, but also accepts—without hammering the point—that it’s OK to share his concerns, ask for help, accept the advice of those outside the family. He portrays himself, but also his brother, their mother, and several counselors and mental health specialists.
This approach stops the show from being a lecture or a confessional or a public prayer. For it is a show, after all. Director Ethan Heard and a cadre of designers make sure it is. There are projections, and a chalkboard, and some interactive passing-around of photos in the audience. As Christopher’s tale is told, props emerge from nondescript cardboard boxes on the floor. Most of them are items used in suicide attempts. The text is largely Jackson Moran’s first-person take on the events concerning Christopher, but is augmented with poetry and other writings by Christopher himself, as well as useful quotes from Shakespeare and Springsteen.
Jackson Moran keeps the narrative on-course without either overplaying or underplaying it. It’s clearly a wrenching and draining exercise for him, but his restraint and clarity gives it high purpose.
For a piece of such personalized emotion—from deep love to honest exasperation—All This Noise also succeeds in universalizing its message of concern for the mentally troubled and the need for all of us to fight the stigmatization of the illness and find new ways to fund and apply research into this expensive and under-insured field. The play calls out New Jersey Governor Chris Christie for hypocrisy and references 9/11 and Newtown. It’s possible to perceive some of these topical references as over-the-top, too much or “too soon,” but as a work of drama, All This Noise’s noise reaches that level of high dudgeon.
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