🐀 The Rat Knows David Greenspan

THE RAT’S RECOMMENDATION:
“ASSUMING YOU KNOW DAVID GREENSPAN”
Cheese Score: 🧀🧀🧀(3/5)

Description:
One 69-year-old man plays four millennial women in a comedy about how to make a living as a playwright (or to try.) 

Why You Should Care:

Clarity Over Clutter – The stage is bare. Limited set, no props, no costume changes. And yet, it feels full. Greenspan slips between characters without hesitation or signal—just pure command. No lighting shifts, no props or wigs, no hand-holding. At one point, he even suggests you’re seeing other people onstage with him. And somehow, you do.

Only a Play Could Do This – This piece is deeply aware of itself as a play—and uses that awareness with sharp intention. The text folds in on itself, with the playwright entering the story mid-scene, mid-thought, as a voice that interrupts, guides, and questions.

Precision in Whimsy – Greenspan dances through the show—literally. He twirls, drifts, shifts his weight like a feather caught in thought. The movement feels silly at first, like a farce. But it’s never loose. The transitions are exact. The choices are deliberate.

Theatre or TV? – Without hitting you over the head, the play quietly lobs hard questions into the air: Is theatre still relevant? Why make this live? Do playwrights now need to write for TV or be subsidized by family wealth? The questions aren’t answered. They’re left hanging

Where – Atlantic Theatre Company
How Long – 1 hour, 30 mins

Who to Bring – Your cousin who said they’d write a play if rent wasn’t so high. The downtown actor who just launched a Patreon for their one-person show about silence. Your ex with twelve personalities and a Google Doc for each. The friend who performs full monologues to themselves in the shower “just to stay sharp.” That guy from college who called himself a “solo artist” but mostly just cried into a ring light.

Overall Cheese rating: 3/5

RAT READERS 🐀🐀🐀

Here we share the responses from our fellow Rat Mischief - this was from last week’s show - John Proctor is the Villain! Submit your review and get featured in next week’s edition.