One might enter “Like They Do in the Movies” — Laurence Fishburne’s one-man show currently playing at the Perelman Performing Arts Center in downtown Manhattan — expecting a monologue stringing together funny anecdotes about the veteran actor’s long history in Hollywood. From the ’70s coming-of-age classic “Cornbread, Earl and Me” to career-defining roles in the franchises of both “The Matrix” and “John Wick,” the 62-year-old thespian surely has his share of stockpiled stories. That’s not what this is at all. “Like They Do in the Movies” instead goes autobiographical in searingly personal ways ultimately centered on the actor’s mercurial relationship with his mother. A therapeutic, cathartic performance for Fishburne, it’s also highly entertaining.
“More on that later,” he says continually throughout the first half of the show, dropping narrative breadcrumbs about palliative care, paternity tests and more intimate details expanded on in the second act. Opening the show dressed in a sweeping sequined caftan, his rather androgynous ensemble lets him fluidly assume the occasional mannerisms and dialogue of his mother. According to Fishburne, Hattie Crawford — a, by all accounts, brilliant, “fast” woman from the South — imprinted Fishburne with unrealized creative impulses of her own that made him the Oscar-nominated actor he is today. That upbringing also carried its share of sexual abuse, grief and deception. But more on that later.
Sandwiched between opening and closing set pieces involving his mom are several character studies, wherein Fishburne alternately assumes the roles of a gruff Irish-American in a Manhattan bar, a friend who soldiered through Hurricane Katrina with his family, a homeless car washer in Tribeca, a celebrity bodyguard, and a Black L.A. expat running a brothel in Australia. All five interact with an unseen, unheard Laurence Fishburne as they tell their tales, and his…
Read the full article here
