La MaMa Blogs: The reviews are coming in for ELEPHANT IN EVERY ROOM I ENTER

Thursday, October 22, 2015

The reviews are coming in for ELEPHANT IN EVERY ROOM I ENTER

Critics are raving about Gardiner Comfort after the first week of performances for The Elephant in Every Room I Enter! Find out what people are saying about this high energy show about his week attending the Tourette Syndrome Association National Conference in Washington, DC! Gardiner Comfort shares his life as an actor with this neurological disorder and discovers, for the first time in his life, how he can be himself.





"Great For: Energetic people with or without Tourette syndrome
Gardiner Comfort takes on the realities of living with Tourette syndrome in this hyper-personal one-man show. Using a mix of experimental elements, including Tourette-inspired choreography, he recreates the experience of his condition, mapping out the textures of his world over a week-long conference. The most interesting aspect of the show is its implicit discomfort. As Comfort presents different tics with a comedic bent, he challenges his audience to laugh, while also forcing them to wonder whether they should."


"Like any savvy storyteller, Gardiner Comfort reaches his audience not by asking them to dispel their stereotypes toward Tourette Syndrome but instead by sharing with them his earnest and often comical anecdotes associated with his condition. All the more impressive is that Comfort presents this via his one-man show The Elephant in Every Room I Enter that he also co-created (alongside director Kel Haney). Most meaningful still is the fact that La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club is opening up dialogue surrounding this often misunderstood syndrome and how Comfort takes this opportunity and runs with it."


"There are moments of great beauty and humanity. Clumsy times when perhaps a better interstitial could be imagined and of course as in any life, the quiet waiting for something else to happen....All the elements knit together to create a piece that illuminates one of the most visible things that a person carries with him into his life, but it further made this reviewer ponder all the unseen tics and experiences that follow each and every one of us into every cranny we enter."


"This style allows the play to capture both the earnest, realistic experience of a person that one expects from an autobiographical one-man-show while simultaneously offering an expressionistic glimpse into the workings of an actor’s mind. Theatergoers get lost in his psyche just as he must become lost in the wheels of his chaotic mind on a regular basis. It’s a high-octane, radical experience of a solo drama, a refreshing piece of experimentation in a form so often filled with monotonous self-aggrandizement." 



"Co-creator and performer Gardiner Comfort leads a bold and captivating performance in this original piece and deftly toes the line between confidence and humility as he explores the exclusion and misunderstanding that accompanies a life burdened by Tourette Syndrome. Comfort and fellow creator and director Kel Haney escort audiences into his psyche, neither asking for pity nor promising false hope, in a sensitive comedy sure to educate and entertain."


La MaMa presents
THE ELEPHANT 
IN EVERY ROOM 
I ENTER
created by Gardiner Comfort & Kel Haney
featuring Gardiner Comfort
directed by Kel Haney

October 15 - 31, 2015

The First Floor Theatre
74A East 4th Street
(between Bowery and Second Avenue)
New York, NY 10003

Tickets: $18 Adults; $13 Students/Seniors
For Tickets and Info: CLICK HERE

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