East 10th Street: Self Portrait with Empty House

Written by Edgar Oliver

Directed by Edgar Oliver

Axis Theatre

One Sheridan Square

212-807-9300

 

Review by Jancy Langley

 

In his one-man show, East 10th Street: Self Portrait with Empty House, Edgar Oliver invites audiences into the bizarre boarding house where he began his New York life: an outrageous corner of the East Village replete with murderous housemates, oddball ghost stories and late-night debauchery. A seasoned storyteller, Oliver meanders through a narrative of near-perfect punch lines and delightful contretemps that balance against the lonesome undertones of his autobiography.

 

 

Village Voice: Edgar Oliver has a downtown view in East 10th Street: Self Portrait with Empty House.

 

Oliver’s story begins when he and his sister, Helen, move to New York from Paris in 1977. The pair find the house on East 10th after a chance walk-by, and soon realize that their carefree ways clash with the neurotic sensibilities of their eccentric housemates: a miniature Cabalist, a rigorous military man, the landlord’s aged wet-nurse, and a gruff, impartial super who grouses over the ghosts who sleep throughout his floor. After Oliver introduces his imaginary cast, a series of well-crafted vignettes picks up the more ludicrous scenes from his years at East 10th.

 

In a particularly charming moment, Oliver discovers Freddie, the jockey-sized Cabalist, stark naked in the process of planting Oliver and Helen’s empty wine bottles on the stairs, hoping to send the siblings slipping to a neck-breaking doom. The story’s comedy borders on the grotesque, but gains depth when Oliver describes a boyhood love: a young director whose ethereal beauty evades Oliver’s desperate affection. After the housemates depart one by one, only Oliver remains in the house with his cats and the internal ghosts of memories past.

 

Despite an occasionally tedious pace, the enchanting message of East 10th Street is that our narrator, like his wild housemates, is a bit of a queer fellow; he admits to prowling the dark edges of Brooklyn, peering into other people’s houses from the shadows and spending much of his social life in the company of his sister. Oliver delivers his tale with grace and honesty; the show seduces as an artifact of a New York that is endangered, if not extinct.