Review: Out of Order, Carl Holder’s Midlife Crisis as Parlor Game

Carl Holder’s new show, Out of Order, is exactly that. He has divided the action into 36 parts, all prompted by cards that fall from the ceiling of East Village Basement into a large punch bowl at the top of the show. Holder randomly fishes the cards from the bowl and performs them in that order. Part parlor game, part confessional solo show, and part midlife crisis, it’s 100 percent the most creative thing playing off-off-Broadway right now.

Dressed in a blue Addidas track suit and white running shoes like he’s training for a prize fight, Holder runs in place before he selects each card, announcing the title of the segment: “Exposition” is the story of a motormouthed child hungry for attention. “Inciting incident” is about that kid’s first audition for a children’s theater. “Rising action” covers his entrance into amateur productions, a BFA program, his unexpected bout with cancer, and his continuing struggles to make a living in a corner of the performing arts that increasingly feels only habitable for those with trust funds.

It’s a fairly standard (if exceptionally candid—Holder gives us a peek at his actual bank statement) look at the theater kid as an elder millennial, exhausted by a career he cannot make sustainable, but not quite ready to let go.

Of course, you probably won’t encounter these pieces in such a neat chronological order. The punch bowl inserts an element of chance, a randomness that feels more truthful than the steady climb and quick falloff that Holder draws in the segment “Teach Them How to Write a Play,” a condensed version of the playwriting class he teaches to supplement his income (he also works in hospitality).

There are also stranger segments in which Holder steps into character as extremely opinionated farm animals, all of whom resent the peacock while secretly wishing to be her. I won’t ruin the genesis of these scenes, but I promise it all makes sense by the time the show is over.

There is a heavy amount of audience interaction in Out of Order, which Holder executes with warmth and boundless charisma. His honesty and vulnerability make the audience want to return the favor.

It certainly helps that this show takes place before an intimate audience of no more than 30 people in a room that looks like a cross between a boutique boxing gym and an actual basement apartment. A bookshelf lines the upper wall featuring titles on theater and bartending. Projections supplement the live presentation (the simple and effective production design is by Adam Wyron and director Skylar Fox).

Fox directs Holder to an energetic, slightly agitated performance. His tightly wound aura contrasts marvelously with Simon Henriques, the “referee” who stands behind the bar with a calm demeanor and permanent sneer, ringing the bell for each new segment to start. Their moments together are some of the funniest.

Out of Order is a fascinating Lego construction, a play that can be taken apart and rebuilt over a thousand ways while losing none of its coherence or emotional impact. It’s also a bracing commentary on how the neatly plotted life rarely works out according to plan. When disaster, fate, and capitalism intervene, all we can do is make the best play with the cards we are dealt.