Is John C. Reilly the lovelorn antidote to a troubled, chaotic world?
At New York’s Cafe Carlyle Friday night, the Oscar- and Grammy-nominated actor reprised perhaps his most sentimental role: Mister Romantic, a nostalgic crooner who wears his heart on his sleeve — sometimes literally — to belt standards and try, effortlessly yet fruitlessly, to find eternal love.
The three-night residency celebrated Friday’s release of What’s Not to Love?, Reilly’s debut album that’s a surprisingly faithful appreciation of the Great American Songbook. You’d be forgiven for thinking the Walk Hard star would offer a fractured take on songs like “Dream” and “Moonlight Serenade.” But the man behind Dewey Cox also took on Mister Cellophane, with Reilly’s earnest vision of Mister Romantic taking center stage.
“I looked at our weary world a few years ago and tried to think of a way I could spread love and empathy,” he said in a statement accompanying the album. “I decided the most fun way to do that was through performing and singing and telling people I loved them.”
Reilly takes thinking outside of the box literally to start the show, as a steamer truck near the stage opens to reveal the actor in a vaudeville-era suit and suspenders, clown-inspired makeup (Reilly studied clowning as a kid and considered being one professionally after acting school) and very vertical hair.
“I don’t have to go back into the box if I can find one person who can love me forever,” he told the crowd. “And that’s the hard part.”
“The show is designed so that I fail so that you feel better about yourself,” Reilly half-joked this week on The Late Show, adding, “like any good clown.”
The nostalgic, supper club vibe of the Carlyle – dressed-up guests supped lobster bisque and ate steak frites and foie pâté while downing cocktails with ingredients like “dry gypsophilia” – was a perfect setting for the show, which drew from jazz, cabaret, pantomime and Reilly’s genial storytelling. As Mister Romantic gets romantically shot down by audience members again and again, it’s hard not to rush the stage to give him a hug.
“The show was born out of despair as much as joy,” Reilly recently told the New York Times. “Because I was looking around at the world — and this has only gotten worse since we started this project, unfortunately — thinking, what in the hell is going on? How could people be so lacking in empathy? I wish it wasn’t political to say that love is worth trying, but it is, for some reason, in this world. It’s a strange time to have to defend empathy. Empathy is the foundation of civilization.”
Pagliacci would’ve loved the show — “I’m not gay or straight,” Mister Romantic tells one male audience member. “I’m just desperate” — and Reilly masterfully weaves between humor and pathos and back again. “I don’t know how to do most things about love,” Mister Romantic says at one point. “I’m hoping you can all teach me.”
But for all its funny parts, the show highlights Reilly’s mellifluous croon, honed from an upbringing performing musical theatre. A gorgeous, commanding take on “My Funny Valentine” leaves the crowd speechless, as do covers of Tom Waits’ “Picture in a Frame” and “Are You Lonesome Tonight?” (The latter sees Reilly comically ripping his heart out and burying it.) With all the vaudevillian touches, it’s not surprising that wry, poetic artists like Waits and Jonathan Richman helped inspire the character.
But romance is, in the end, everywhere. Reilly’s mic is covered with roses. He throws rose petals on an audience member’s head while crooning “Mona Lisa” to her. (“Will you love me forever?” he asks. Her reply: “I’m afraid not.”) He rubs noses with the crowd. He does a 60-year-old man version of Magic Mike to “Dream a Little Dream.”
“It might sound Pollyanna-ish,” he told the Times, “but it really was the instinct for the show. How do I start a conversation about love?”
Whether Mister Romantic finds everlasting love or not is besides the point. With the character, Reilly succeeds with one simple, if increasingly difficult-sounding goal: “We’re all going to be nice to each other for 90 minutes.”
