Daniel Radcliffe Will Talk You Off The Ledge

When I first read that Daniel Radcliffe would be doing Every Brilliant Thing on Broadway, I didn't think it would work. It's not that I was worried about Radcliffe, who besides his film and TV career has established himself as a bona fide stage entertainer. I was worried about everybody else in the theater, because this play runs on audience participation. For Radcliffe in particular I imagined it could be like navigating a minefield, especially in a show about depression and suicide. Every description I've heard or read about him involves the word "charming" somewhere in there, but he's also someone I associate with intense scrutiny and obsessive fandom, thanks to the whole Harry Potter phenomenon. For example, someone who worked at a theater where Radcliffe had previously performed once told me that they had to hire extra security so people didn't break into his dressing room. With the Hudson Theatre holding just under 1,000, the odds didn't seem good that everyone who attended on a nightly basis would demonstrate polite behavior when Radcliffe crossed the traditional divide between audience and performer.

But if anyone's been a total weirdo at Every Brilliant Thing , I haven't heard about it. And when I attended the show, now a couple months into its run, I was impressed both by the overall chill of my fellow theatergoers and the way the audience participation transcended its potential for gimmickry to become something that genuinely worked in the context of the play. There are certainly Broadway shows with more action and more developed writing, but the pieces of Every Brilliant Thing , orchestrated by Radcliffe, fit together to form an experience that justifies the leap of faith required to perform or attend it.

In any venue, with any level of celebrity in the cast, breaking the fourth wall is a tricky endeavor—I know several people who are terrified by the idea that an actor may "call on them." If that's you, you'll want to sit in the balcony, because the overwhelming majority of audience participation is sourced from the seats closest to (or actually on) the stage. But a lucky few from up high get to shout something out when cued, and in order to prepare them for their moment, Radcliffe does travel upstairs before the formal start time. As I was taking my own seat in the balcony about 10 minutes before the top of the hour, I was delightfully surprised to encounter him delivering instructions to someone sitting just a few rows ahead. The average audience member looked a lot like me—women in the rough age cohort where it was once actually normal and fine to really love Harry Potter —but I was quite impressed that nobody moved to get closer to him or interrupted his task. I personally couldn't resist snapping a photo, and of course folks were staring at the star of the show. But if you swapped Radcliffe out with a very handsome usher, the scene would have looked just about the same.