Smiler
Jesus
(not his real name) is here to talk about his best friend, Smiler. It took a
little while for the pair to understand each other due to Smiler’s speech
defect and Jesus’s initial awkwardness around Smiler’s disability, but
now the two are inseparable.
Jesus
recounts the story of their friendship in rhyming verse and the poetry feels
natural in the mouth of writer and performer, Richard Fry. It is only Fry’s
occasional forays into the realm of glibness – a consequence of an overly
dutiful adherence to the rhyme scheme – that disturbs the flow of the piece.
Fry’s
performance is disarmingly honest and committed – Smiler was
inspired by the actor’s real life friendship with a young man living with a
head injury, and the truth of his feeling is palpable.
Where many
one-person plays are merely plot-free character studies, this piece has proper
narrative drive and the capacity to surprise its audience. Fry makes a couple
of strange choices – Jesus’s back story feels like it has been crow-barred in for
no discernable reason – but overall Smiler hits the mark.
