Crazy Over Love?
nytheatre.com review by Lauren Marks
March 9, 2007
David Tyson's Crazy Over Love is the story of Joe Guy, victim of a broken heart. Joe Guy is defending his life in front of St. Peter and an unsympathetic DA after his post-breakup leap from the Stonybrook Bridge. What makes Joe's story different from every other misbegotten Romeo's is his unusual method of telling his tale. Which involves magic. And juggling. And at least three major wig changes. Solo performer David Tyson conjures a little bit of comic/magician Harry Anderson, with both his lanky form and his self-deprecating wit. He engages the audience throughout the piece, even to the point of enlisting magician's assistants from among them. And somewhere along the way, spectators are led to believe that Tyson's own romantic misadventures may bear quite a bit in common with the unlucky Joe.
If you've ever seen a street performer and found yourself wondering what he might be like at home—or who might be the woman behind the man in the red nose—Tyson's piece offers some inventive insight. If the age-old story of love gone wrong told in handkerchief tricks doesn't get you in the theatre, there is the added bonus of one honest-to-God straitjacket escape. Because, you know, love makes you (and David Tyson) a little crazy.
