Sardines

Is it possible to include a singalong in a show about the tragic deaths of loved ones? If you’re Chris Grace the answer is a resounding yes. He manages to take one of the most difficult subjects we face as humans and infuse it with humor.

Standing in a stark black box of a theatre clad in white with only a white stool, Grace asks us to imagine there is a projector beaming a slide of a picture of a family. This device is one of the most clever in the show by asking us to use our imagination. We are allowed to insert our own dear friends and family in the picture as we follow along. From there we learn that most of the people in the picture are gone, passing in a relatively short time span. Most of the deaths are unexpected.

At the outset Grace poses the questions “Can you enjoy something when you know how it ends?” and “Does art help?” then proceeds to explore the answers through the lives of those lost and his reactions to them.

Grace’s rapport with the audience is immediate, as to be expected for an artist who has spent a fair amount of his career doing stand-up and improv comedy. But to say that this was merely a comic set would be inaccurate. Grace deftly uses humor to guide us through darkness, and ease our fear of the unknown. His portraits of the people in his life are colored by his love for them while admitting the difficulty of fitting full human beings into a one hour show.

The show is directed by his husband Eric Michaud, who is also a major character in the show. Their collaboration has produced a piece that looks squarely at death and tells it a joke. But the humor does not mean the subject is not taken seriously. There is real pain in Sardines as he faces things both said and unsaid, and ponders how well he truly knows the people in his life.

There are no easy answers to the questions posed at the top of the show. Maybe the answer is different for everyone in the theatre. However, Chris Grace shows us that a sense of humor and a great Rhianna tune sure help.

Sardines runs through June 14th at New York Theatre Workshop's In The Bricks Series

For Information visit New York Theatre Workshop's website here

Review By Wendy-Lane Bailey