"Birbiglia’s virtuosity as a narrator is very real, giving him full control over the evening and the audience’s reactions."
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"Like all of Birbiglia’s joints, 'The Old Man & the Pool' is carefully structured: The chatty sidetracks always loop back to the central path. Birbiglia is an expert at controlling the pace and energy of the evening."
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"Birbiglia doesn’t bend toward sentimentality. When it comes to matters of the heart, poetic and cardiovascular, he simply suggests chains of family history can be broken."
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"This is a man in full control, perhaps not of his body or his health or any of the bad stuff that life brings our way, but of how he, and perhaps his audience, can cope with it all."
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"If you’ve ever seen Mike Birbiglia before, whether on stage or screen, then 'The Old Man and the Pool' feels like catching up with an old friend — albeit one with a lot more health problems than you."
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"There is an appealing smoothness, simplicity, and sense of construction to Birbiglia’s shows...Here’s hoping that Birbiglia continues to come to Broadway each season with new autobiographical monologues and inspires the same kind of turnout."
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"There is an emotional honesty to the piece that makes it feel like it only could have been born following our worldwide collective trauma. You come away feeling like you've met Mike Birbiglia, the man, for the very first time, for real. I can't wait to see where he goes from here."
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"It makes for a downright pleasurable evening presided over by an adroit and crowd-pleasing entertainer. These days, that might just be what the doctor ordered."
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