Gary Gulman Grandiloquent

If you already know Gary Gulman, and from the sound of my fellow audience members last weekend, 99% of them DID, you will be over the moon for this show.  If you are not familiar, you will still be charmed and entertained because that is the essence of Gulman.  Charming and entertaining.  This is not a bad thing.  Interspersed with the charm and entertainment is some damn funny and perceptive material.

This show is centered, one could almost say located, in Gulman’s home town of Peabody (pronounced PEA-buddy for you uninformed folks) Massachusetts.  Gulman was the third son, way younger than the first two, and spent time as a small child currying the favors of adults because he had no family interested enough in him to do more than offer critiques of his material.  It was a small town with his First Grade teacher living next door.  She had the extra key to Gulman’s house, let him call her by her first name away from school, and was the one who delivered the news that he was going to repeat the first grade at the insistence of his father, who had moved out some years before, but still held sway over that family.

Here’s Gulman talking about his show:

 

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by Gary Gulman (@garygulman)

Storywise, things pretty much stop here.  That event stopped forward motion big time, and Gulman has spent more than a few decades pulling it all apart.  His ruminations are intriguing.  He had been the tallest kid in his original class, and the second time around, the situation took on grave proportions.  Kids thought he worked at the school for one thing.  And then there was the new First Grade teacher who picked the wings off flies in a former life and in this life, was content to torture Gulman over a misplaced library book.

No matter how far away this story wanders it always comes back to this period in his life.  Gulman rummages around this incident like a pig looking for truffles.  He mulls over the facts, turning the earth of the story over and over, picking out odd bits that take him down another path but not for long.  The one stone that is not turned is the fact that his father alone seemed to be in charge of the situation just on his say-so alone.  His son was not mature enough, he said. All these years later, Gulman does not understand what that meant.  Perhaps it is too dark a path to investigate.

The second element toward which Gulman gravitates is books.  He shows us the first book he read by himself: “The Monster at the End of This Book” by Grover.  He was hooked by the very, very, very first page where Grover is pictured, saying, “This is a very dull page.”  Gulman shows us the Sun Up book from First Grade that did nothing to save him from his incarceration.  In second grade, he wrote “The Lonely Tree,” which is, even today, his therapist’s go-to.  So important to him are books, and the entire set is made up of five bookcases of 10 shelves each, loaded with literature.  Except for one bookcase that is copped over and has spilled its largess all over the set.  Why?  Who knows.  

As this engaging choo-choo train slides into the station, we are brought back to Grover and Gulman, who have both thought of themselves as the monsters in the book, who both want us to enter but are afraid to ask.  Gulman’s vocabulary is way ahead of Grover. He twists and turns words like a magician about to pull a rabbit out of a hat.  He presents as uncertain, but he is uncertain like a fox.  Because in the end we discover ourselves back where we started with moments to spare.

Gulman is a chameleon.  While he feigns innocence, in the end, he reminds us that all the while, he has indeed been Grandiloquent (extravagant in language, style, or manner, especially in a way that is intended to impress) in plain sight.  A Magician indeed.

Gary Gulman Grandiloquent

Written and performed by Gary Gulman, Directed by Moritz von Stuelpnagel

Scenic Design Beowulf Boritt, Costume Design by Tilly Grimes, Lighting Design by Adam Honoré

At the Lucille Lortel Theatre through February 8.  TICKETS HERE