Review: John Mulaney and Friends Read Us Stories by Simon Rich in All In: Comedy About Love on Broadway

Have you heard the one about the genie who grants a guy his wish for a 12-inch pianist? You will if you see All In: Comedy About Love on Broadway, directed by Alex Timbers and starring a rotating cast of comedic greats. That joke is at the center of a story penned by Simon Rich and delivered by John Mulaney. The only thing that keeps it from seeming like it’s going too long is Mulaney’s dedication to the bit — but even he can’t save it from a weak punchline.

That is unfortunately often the case in this staged reading of several lightly adapted humorous love stories by Rich, a former writer for SNL and good friend of Mulaney. Rich (who happens to be the son of formerly powerful theater critic and Succession producer Frank Rich) has written loads of novels and short-story collections over the years, publishing frequently in The New Yorker (a producer of the production), and Timbers came up with the idea of making All In while reading them during the pandemic.

In theory, having actors read stories, scripts in hand, seems like a reasonable idea. We’ve seen similar plays before (A.R. Gurney’s sappy Love Letters and the currently running Pen Pals are two examples). Rich has a knack for the kooky and absurd, and his tales about growling pirates, dogs trying to connect through the personals, and babies that talk like characters out of a Philip Marlowe novel, are never not amusing. I have to say that I was smiling throughout much of the show, but with the exceptions of one or two winners, All In feels like a joke that goes on for too long and it doesn’t have the knee-slapping payoff to make it worth 90 minutes of your time.

That’s not the fault of the cast, which also includes Fred Armisen, Richard Kind, and Renée Elise Goldsberry at the performance I attended (the rotating company will feature Annaleigh Ashford, Hank Azaria, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Jimmy Fallon, Nick Kroll, and more). All arrive onstage in spiffy attire (costumes by Jennifer Moeller), binders open, and take their seats beneath faux-opulent chandeliers (scenic design by David Korins) as indie group the Bengsons plays them on from the sidelines with music by Stephin Merritt of the Magnetic Fields.

If you’re going to have actors reading stories for a Broadway audience, this is the cast you want. In “Learning the Ropes,” Mulaney and Armisen pair off as pirates who can’t figure out what to do with a stowaway baby, played cutely by Goldsberry (Lucy Mackinnon projects New Yorker cartoonist Emily Flake’s depiction of “Rotten Pete” on the back wall). Mulaney and Armisen have a schtick where they begin every sentence with “Arrrr!” that gets chuckles at first, but the bit is a long walk off a short plank.

Things fare better in “New Client,” in which Kind brings his jowly New Yorker angst to a talent agent who tries to postpone the afterlife by getting an easily flattered Death (Armisen) to sign a contract for a movie deal with Martin Scorsese (sound designer Peter Hylenski distorts Armisen’s voice into a demonic baritone as Jake DeGroot illuminates his face with a fiendish red). The plot, however, feels too familiar to carry the comedy very far. Death is a schlub. Next.

The highlight comes with “The Big Nap,” a story that seems ripped out of a Rugrats episode. It’s about a hard-boiled baby (Mulaney) trying to crack the case of a missing stuffed unicorn that an easily confused 1-year-old (Goldsberry) can’t find anywhere. Mulaney’s voice, which already sounds like a spoof of a film noir narrator, nails this one. Kind plays the Nana who brings yummy medicine to put the baby down when he acts up, while Mama (Armisen) goes off on suspicious errands. “The Big Nap” is one of the show’s longer pieces, but the cast crushes it from beginning to end. This one had me laughing out loud.

If only the others had worked as well (it would have also been nice to hear more from the Bengsons, whose musical interludes between stories were a welcome respite). No matter how you slice it, this is less a play than a reading of whacky short stories, so the real draw is the onstage talent who try to bring them to life. It’s not like hearing your favorite actor read the phonebook, but sometimes it feels close.