All of Me Off-Broadway Reviews

The representation of disabled actors and disabled characters on stage has come a long way in the past decade, but All of Me moves the needle further. The play is laugh-out-loud funny, and it works so well because it doesn’t try to uplift or educate the audience. Instead, it authentically represents the characters and bakes the challenging experience of disability in America into the plot. For example, many of Lucy’s choices, like moving in with Alfonso, hinge on her ability to maintain eligibility for social security disability benefits.

There are a few bumps on the road to happily ever after; in fact, Winters doesn’t wrap everything up that neatly. But Alfonso and Lucy do dance in the final scene—and as we know from any good Shakespearean comedy, end-of-play dancing pretty much equals a happy ending.

Directed by Ashley Brooke Monroe in a manner that expertly navigates the play’s tightrope-walking balancing act between raucous laughs and poignant emotion, All of Me makes you laugh uproariously one moment and gives you a lump in your throat the next.

There is a wittiness to the play’s conceit, rendering the awkward sparks of flirtation in synthetic voices. (The line readings and timing are a collaboration between the actors and the creative team, including the sound designer Matt Otto.) And Winters pays careful attention to the dynamics of living with disabilities that we rarely see depicted onstage, like balancing personal agency with the realities of needing assistance. But a sense of dutifulness toward representation — exploring differences in class as well as the origins and onset of disabilities, for example — gives “All of Me” a schematic quality. A subplot dealing with the opioid epidemic very nearly tips it into P.S.A. territory.

Presented by The New Group and directed by Ashley Brooke Monroe, it’s a funny, combative, and ultimately celebratory view of love and determination breaking free from the disruptive socio-economic biases in their families and contemporary America – not exactly a spoiler, since it is, as advertised, a feel-good rom-com, not a tragicomedy!

The biggest issue with the play, however, is how hard Winters tries to make the lovers’ class distinction a major issue, but their different economic statuses is not really the thing that comes between them. Nor are their mothers. Alfonso, a successful data scientist, ultimately has trouble seeing a future with the unambitious Lucy, who can’t even commit to touring a community college for one afternoon. One wishes this subject was explored more – and resolved far less easily -- than it is. Still, original works that can make audiences laugh – and even cry – are a rarer commodity in theater than they should be these days. So, I’ll take “All of Me.” You should too!