Glee Club at The Brick

OK. I'm not impartial here. Playwright Matthew Freeman is a good friend of mine and in his new show at the Brick, out of the eight cast members, I counted six who had either acted in or directed one of my shows. Go read something else for cold-blooded objectivity. But I've seen a lot of Freeman's work, and "Glee Club," part of the Antidepressant Festival, may be my favorite. "Glee Club" is a hilariously nasty piece of work, a bunch of losers in an amateur singing group prepping for a concert for the terminally ill. The star soloist has joined AA and no longer has the pipes he had when on the sauce. Then things get weird. All the characters are venal, neurotic and unbelievably selfish. The whole thing quickly devolves into a men-only "The Lottery," by Shirley Jackson, only funnier. What's remarkable (and enviable) about the piece is how much Matt is able to sustain the comedy while going deep into very disturbing territory.

The whole cast is great but I have to say my favorite performance was my friend (and frequent director/collaborator) Stephen Speights as the obsessed and passive-aggressive music director. His meltdown near the end while breaking up a fight is one of the funniest things I've seen on a stage in a long time. There are only three more performances at odd times and I'm looking over my calendar to see when if I can get to it again.