27
Dec/15

COLIN QUINN: THE NEW YORK STORY

27
Dec/15
(photo by Mike Lavoie)

Colin Quinn explores the history and development of the New York character in one-man show (photo by Mike Lavoie)

Cherry Lane Mainstage Theatre
38 Commerce St.
Tuesday – Sunday through January 31, $25-$96
212-989-2020
www.colinquinnthenewyorkstory.com
www.cherrylanetheatre.org

Colin Quinn likes to tackle big subjects. In 2010, the actor and comedian took Broadway audiences on a journey through the history of the world in Long Story Short. In 2013 at the Barrow Street Theatre, the gruff Brooklyn-born comic explored American history in Unconstitutional. In his latest seventy-five-minute one-man show, The New York Story, based on what he claims will be his only book, The Coloring Book: A Comedian Solves Race Relations in America, Quinn examines the development (and death) of the New York persona. “Our tourist attraction is the people. Nobody else had people like this,” he says near the start of the show. “Smoking cursing rude sarcastic pushy loud fast-talking outspoken. It’s not a pleasant personality but it was entertaining and honest.” Slowly ambling across Sara C. Walsh’s old-time set, which features a classic New York City stoop, a laundry line of drying clothing, stacks of wooden crates, and small flags from many nations, Quinn discusses the Indians, the Dutch, the British, the Germans, the Irish, the Jews, the Italians, the Puerto Ricans, and the blacks, not afraid to be politically incorrect as he details what each ethnicity, religion, and race contributed to New York City. He’s no stranger to edgy material: He hosted the politically oriented comic talk show Tough Crowd, was formerly the anchor of “Weekend Update” on Saturday Night Live, has a recurring role on Girls, and played Amy Schumer’s father in Trainwreck. He can be wickedly funny about each group while respecting their individual heritages, but he’s also clearly upset about where we are today, seemingly drained of our uniqueness as New Yorkers. “First of all: positivity, inclusion, non-judgmentalism, those are all great qualities to have,” he points out. “But not in New York. This city was supposed to be the sanctuary city for the judgmental, the obnoxious, the non-positive. That’s the thing. And somewhere along the way we decided to appropriate the rest of the country’s positivity.”

The show, which begins with Odyssey’s “Native New Yorker” and concludes with Ace Frehley’s “Back in the New York Groove,” is directed by Jerry Seinfeld, who also helmed Long Story Short. It includes projections of city monuments and subway signs that are sometimes hard to make out, and Quinn often seems to be trying too hard to hit his mark instead of being more natural. But his verbal delivery is superb, speaking to the audience like he’s sharing a beer with us instead of lecturing like a professor, rambling through broken sentences as he uses his gruff Brooklyn Irish accent to expound on the state of the city he, and we, love. “The immigrants are the only ones who are still authentic,” Quinn explains. Amid all the laughs, the truth hurts. Tickets for the show are allocated geographically, from $56 for the Coney Island and Red Hook seats in the rear to, getting ever closer to the stage, $76 for Hell’s Kitchen and $96 for Washington Heights and Yonkers.