List for life – Chicago Reader

Seeing Writers Theatre’s current production of Every Brilliant Thing on opening night three days after the election hit harder than it might have otherwise done. Duncan Macmillan’s 2013 solo play, which started life at the Ludlow Fringe Festival in the UK, is about literally listing the things that make life worth living (everything from “ice cream” to “completing a task”). Originally performed by Jonny Donahoe (who is credited as coauthor), this is the show’s second appearance on Chicago stages, after the Windy City Playhouse 2019 outing. It feels even more essential now.

Every Brilliant Thing
Through 1/5/2025: Wed–Fri 7:30 PM, Sat 3 and 7:30 PM; Sun 2 and 6 PM; also Wed 11/13, 11/20, and 12/11 3 PM; no show Sun 6 PM 11/17, 11/24, and 12/15; open captions Thu 11/14; Writers Theatre, 325 Tudor Ct., Glencoe, 847-242-6000, writerstheatre.org, $70

Jessie Fisher, under Kimberly Senior’s direction, is our guide through the show’s 70 minutes, which takes place in the company’s smaller Gillian Theatre, transformed into a cozy backyard patio by set designer Izumi Inaba. Audience members (some of whom are seated onstage) are handed slips of paper to chime in with items on “the list”—created by the narrator as a young child in response to her mother’s attempt to end her own life. As she grows, we see how her mother’s depression has marked her own path through life and her own difficulties in forming close relationships. “The list” becomes a group project, added to over the years by friends.

The show doesn’t shy away from sadness and grief (and at one point, offers some helpful advice for how to frame discussions around suicide). But Fisher’s beguiling performance—aided by audience volunteers who stand in for the narrator’s dad, school therapist, college lit professor, and spouse—creates a room for us to collectively think about what lights our way when it feels like the entire world is blinding us. “We have to imagine a future that’s better than our past,” she says at one point. A tall order these days, but a good reminder that getting through it together with compassionate souls is the starting point.