A “Barn-Raiser” of a Performance: Every Brilliant Thing at Cape Rep

It’s a play about depression and suicide. And you’ll leave the performance smiling.

Sound daft? It could if you were talking about anything other than Every Brilliant Thing, a one-man production starring Lewis D. Wheeler, now playing in the beautiful renovated barn at the Cape Rep Theatre in Brewster. It’s energetic, fun, and the level of audience participation involved creates a community—I found myself taking my leave of other participants as though we were real acquaintances and friends who had lived through an adventure together.

Wheeler plays a man talking about growing up with a suicidal mother, whose first attempt to take her life occurred when he was just seven years old. The narrator dealt with it as do many children in less-than-optimal parenting situations: he tried to fix her, in his case by creating a list of all the wonderful reasons for her to want to live. Ice cream, water fights, staying up past your bedtime, things with stripes… By the time she came home from the hospital, he’d amassed 314 of these brilliant things. (Note that “brilliant” is used in the British sense, meaning “wonderful,” rather than the American usage that means “smart.”)

The key to the play’s hold on the audience is that it features full participation—we all join in the telling of the narrator’s story, playing minor characters, reading entries off strips of paper distributed before the play began. I’m not much of an improv person myself, and entered this situation with some skepticism, but that rapidly disappeared as everyone in the room relaxed into their temporary roles—while watching others in theirs. From the very beginning (when Wheeler asked a random audience member to give him a sweater, which magically became his dying pet on his way to the vet for euthanasia, picking another person to be the vet who put the pet to sleep by injecting it using the pen belonging to yet another audience member) there’s a sense that we’re all in this together.

Wheeler is amazingly at home in his body; he moves quickly, gracefully, energetically, catching and holding people’s gazes, flitting from one “brilliant thing” to the next, carrying the narrator’s story as he ages and adapting it to his Cape Cod audience. He owns this life so well that it’s hard to imagine anyone else in the role.

Years pass by; he goes to college; marries; divorces. His mother tries again. His marriage fails. He becomes obsessed with musicians who suicided and pronounces himself “glad to be ordinary.” And weaving through all of it is the quick-fire recitation by audience members of the now tens of thousands of brilliant things: laughing so hard milk comes out of your nose, waking up late with someone you love, knowing someone well enough to ask them if you have spinach caught in your teeth.

Every Brilliant Thing started as a solo work written by Duncan Macmillan and co-penned and performed by British comedian Jonny Donahoe, who first performed it. It’s now had versions all over the world, from Athens to Singapore and beyond, expressly written so that directors and performers can tailor it to their own cultural context.

Part of the success of this production has to be the space in which it’s performed: Cape Rep’s newly renovated barn provides open spaces, intimate spaces, and most of all flexible spaces; it’s easy to see why the organization has put so much effort into its restoration. Director Julie Allen Hamilton, lighting designer Susan Nicolson, sound designer Maura Hanlon, and costume designer Robin McLaughlin have created, in concert with Wheeler himself, an absolute jewel of an inaugural play. It’s hard to imagine a more perfect experience.

Depression, suicide, love, marriage, divorce, all are related with gentle humor and child-like honesty. Every Brilliant Thing is a life-affirming story of how to achieve hope, focusing on the smallest miracles of life even while dealing with depression—and the lengths to which we’ll go for those we love. It’s a wonderful experience. Don’t miss it!

Every Brilliant Thing

Date: May 8, 2025 — June 1, 2025
Days & Times: Thursday – Saturday at 7:30 pm, Sunday at 2 pm

review by Jeannette de Beauvoir

photos by Bob Tucker/Focalpoint Studio