I Hear You and Rejoice NYC Reviews and Tickets

"Accomplished entertainer though he is, Tony Cleary doesn’t have a thing on his creator...This virtuoso is strictly small-time compared to Mikel Murfi, the inexhaustibly multifarious writer, director and sole performer...It’s ultimately impossible to resist the gale theatrical force as Mr. Murfi presents his heroine through a multi-angled prism, with body language as precise, condensed and evocative as Morse code."
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“Murfi is amazing...Murfi employs his vocal and physical prowess to conjure up an entire community on the stage that is bare...An exquisite theatrical experience of the purest form...Murfi is breathtaking as he clowns, mimes and barrels all over the space while distinctively rendering each character...He creates a work that combines humor and pathos with a characteristic Irish dark sensibility...Murfi’s simple staging craftily serves the material...The production has momentum and visual depth.”
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“It’s lovely to see how a simple twist of a hip can suggest a woman who is annoyed, and a tugging gesture at the armpits can suggest an ill-fitting bra...A program note indicates that encounters Murfi had with groups of older people in Sligo helped formulate these remarkable theater pieces...In addition...it is a tremendous pleasure to witness the remarkable Murfi, dressed in pants, suspenders, and a shirt, take stage so effectively with nary a prop save for a chair.”
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"I have to confess that for much of the 75 minutes, I felt I was trying to get a handle on a runaway chicken of a yarn, flapping this way and that. Those who’ve suffered grief and loss may be able to catch, if they’re quick-eared, nicely turned phrases of touching consolation...Miserable sinner that I am, I found much of it deathly, and rejoiced not a lot."
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"Mikel Murfi contains multitudes – still. The Irish actor can fill a one-man show with people: men, women, children. He brings whole villages to life...Murfi is legion and it is quite a thing to watch...This is a show that abounds with love – so much that, in many ways, it struggles to find the words for it...But it works less through words than through feeling. Through Pat, you feel like you've known Kitsy Rainey all your life."
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"Here it is, pure distilled 100 per cent proof theatrical magic, conjured up by one man on one chair on an otherwise bare stage. The boundless power of words and storytelling to conjure worlds to involve and enchant an audience has rarely been so clearly demonstrated...Murfi is quite simply mesmerising in his engrossing evocation of this gentle world of vividly realised characters, not least his indomitable, irascible and warmly appealing wife."
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“This performance by Mikel Murfi holds you close, makes you listen as he weaves a storyteller’s spell...Murfi, alone on stage with just a chair, is writer and performer. He is barefoot, in suit trousers and braces, transforming himself into a multiplicity of characters...The show is 75 minutes long, funny and sad at the same time, just the right length for a piece that never bores and, in the end, touches the heart.”
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"By turns heart-warming and heart breaking, Mikel Murfi’s 'I Hear You and Rejoice' is a gentle, elegiac multi-character monologue about grief and love in later life...The world Murfi conjures is luminously clear, if somewhat narrow in scope. Given Murfi’s sweet-tooth for sentimentality, it is unsurprising that the piece sometimes wobbles towards the mawkish. However, a backbone of truthfulness, humour, and tremendous warmth supports the show."
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"The Irishman delivers his words with a rhythm and a lyricism best described as hypnotic...Amid the laughter is a powerful meditation on the significance of a life well-lived, told from the bottom of a broken heart...What may sound like hyperbole elsewhere sounds perfectly natural in Murfi’s hands. This is a masterclass in the art of the monologue. Funerals have rarely been so enjoyable."
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"Preaching to the converted, Murfi’s less inventive follow-on suffers the dreaded curse of the sequel; being far less interesting or engaging than the first. There’s still plenty of comedy, plenty of sighs, plenty of Murfi’s impeccable performance skills, and more strands of nostalgia and sentimentality than you'd find on a stick of candy floss. Yet this eulogy for a whirlwind is absent a whirlwind, despite some genuinely touching and hilarious moments."
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"Living as we do in a society obsessed with youth culture, tooth whitening, Botox and hair extensions, it is refreshing to witness an older artist telling a tale of the simple and unpretentious among us...Mikel can share the extremes and vulnerabilities of humanity with deftness and ease. Clearly, his performance comes from a man of large heart and astute observation of the human condition. This is a theatrical performance which deserves to be seen."
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"What we get is a stunning performance and a celebration of the joy of everyday human interaction...A few extra beats might help in establishing the characters but the writing is spry and sure-footed. Reveals about Pat’s disability are sensitively bedded into the narrative. Murfi’s physical dexterity over 75 minutes is astonishing...The wit is endlessly surprising and humane."
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"A joyful play full of sentimentality that is also hugely funny...Mikel Murfi is an actor at the top of his physical and vocal game...The story itself is a gleeful tribute to eccentricity. Murfi has taken the quirky humanity of people in a small town and puts these people centre stage. In Murfi’s hands, they deserve this position. He is an extraordinarily skilled clown and performer...If the story is overly sentimental at times, it is also beautifully uplifting."
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