Noah Galvin and Chip Zien, Two Jews in a Room Kibbitzing About The Reservoir

“Leave me out of your mental illness!” demands Shrimpy, the foul-mouthed grandfather played by Broadway veteran Chip Zien in The Reservoir, now at the Atlantic’s Linda Gross Theater through March 15.

If only. In playwright Jake Brasch’s darkly witty off-Broadway debut, there is no escaping the daily anguish of life. Certainly not the anguish of our protagonist, Josh, who has returned home to Denver to get sober. Struggling with brain fog and memory loss, Josh finds an odd kinship with his four grandparents who are all at various stages of mental decline themselves.

Josh is played by Noah Galvin, himself a lifelong creature of the theater. Galvin toured as a Gavroche at 10, then made his New York debut at 16. Following pre-Covid Broadway runs in Dear Evan Hansen and Waitress, he returns to the New York stage after a six-year absence.

Brasch’s play hits comic heights with Josh’s visits to Shrimpy, who deflects from his “Diet Alzheimer’s” with vulgar humor. For Galvin, acting opposite Zien, the iconic star of Into the Woods and Falsettos, is a dream. And luckily, given the actor’s constant fourth-wall breaking narration, he doesn’t have to try and keep a straight face.

This conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity.

Noah, you came up in the theater, but you haven’t appeared on stage in New York in six years. Why was The Reservoir the play to lure you back?
Noah Galvin: My father passed away from dementia two years ago, so I immediately felt very seen by this piece. As horrible as it was to watch a parent decline in that way, we got through it as a family with humor, celebration, and joy. And I felt that The Reservoir did just that. This story could be very hashtag issue play. but it manages to remain light and funny while still hugging the darkness at the same time.

Chip Zien: Noah climbs Mount Everest every night. It’s the biggest part anybody’s ever had.

Noah: I’m just railing the audience with my words for two hours.

What was your relationship to this living legend, the great Chip Zien, before you two met on this project?
Chip: Noah idolized me. It’s been hard to take.

Noah: In the eighth grade, my mom got a call from the public library with a fine for like $600. I had taken out the Into the Woods VHS and just never gave it back. It had it on a continuous loop.

Chip: I had banned [that VHS] in my house.

Noah: You banned it? You’d deny them such joy?

Chip: Because if the kids put it on, I’d panic and think I had to make an entrance.

So, having idolized Chip for all those years, Noah, now getting to work with him…
Noah: It’s just a joy. I mean, he represents little leading men! We both have the egos of leading men, in the bodies of character actors.

You two do share a similar comedic style. That caustic sense of humor.
Noah: Yeah, we’re both Borscht Belt comedians born at the wrong time.

Chip: But I think Noah’s a lot sturdier than I ever was.

“Sturdier”?
Chip: I’m so nervous, always. I’m nervous right now. Filled with anxieties of different kinds. But Noah has effortlessly navigated this whole situation. I mean, it’s like playing Hamlet or something, it’s huge. I set a very bad example. My goal is to disrupt the proceedings as best I can.

But that’s in keeping with your character. Shrimpy is the only one of Josh’s grandparents who never wants to talk about feelings. He deflects all serious conversation, often with some highly inappropriate humor.
Chip: My cousin is coming to the show, who’s a cantor, and I’m a little worried —

Noah: Are you nervous?

Chip: I’m not sure how she’ll feel about the crude nature of Shrimpy’s riffs.

Do you have a favorite? Is there a moment that has reliably been getting a big audience reaction?
Chip: Well…

Noah: I mean…

Chip: “I’m straight, mostly. But sometimes, I look at dicks on my computer.” So what, ‘ya know? He looks at the dicks.

Early on, Shrimpy mentions a bit too casually that he has “Diet Alzheimer’s.” It’s funny, obviously, but it’s hard to know if Shrimpy’s mental decline has anything to do with this lack of filter, or if he’s just being himself.
Noah: “Diet Alzheimer’s” is obviously his way of minimizing it. But also, is it just that it hasn’t hit yet, and he’s experiencing the beginning stages of being scrambled and disoriented? Will it hit him like a ton of bricks at some point? Or is it this steady decline over the course of however many years? We don’t know.

Chip: I think he likes to have fun. He’s a low-rent entertainer.

Noah: He’s just doing his tight five.

Chip: Similar to Noah’s experience, I had to take care of an uncle who was suffering from dementia. What was interesting was the irregular way in which he declined. He was a very brilliant man, very smart. We’d be sitting there talking about politics. And then he’d turn to me and say, in all seriousness, “Chip, you see that cow on the roof of the garage over there?” I thought he was kidding. The decline is so uneven.

Noah: My father was at the Actor’s Fund Home for the last two years of his life. He had been a psychoanalyst. I started getting messages from people there who were like, “I just wanted to thank you for your father’s service, he really helped us through the loss of our grandmother.” And I was like, “Oh no, this crazy man is out here doing group therapy with people! Don’t listen to him, he’s nuts!” But he really was helping people, because he had this skill just in him. It was a part of his chemistry.

Chip: Like Tony Bennett performing with Lady Gaga. He would remember the words to those songs.

Noah: That’ll be us, Chip.