'Love Me' Off-Broadway review — comedian Drew Michael invites you inside his head

Read our review of Love Me, a new solo comedy show written and performed by Drew Michael at SoHo Playhouse through November 22.

Summary

• Comedian Drew Michael's solo show Love Me analyzes five relationships from his life to unpack his lack of success in Love Me
• Audience members wear headphones, used effectively to mimic the experience of being inside Michael's head
• The show is recommended for fans of Michael's previous comedy work, like his stand-up specials and SNL writing
• The show is designed to be fully accessible for deaf and hearing audiences

Have you ever wished you could invite someone inside your head so they could understand exactly what it feels like to be you? That’s exactly what Drew Michael sets out to achieve with his solo show Love Me at SoHo Playhouse. The show begins like any stand-up special might: Michael on stage, telling jokes about his life, from one to the next with practiced segues that keep the momentum up. The lighting is classic comedy-club style, and there’s no sound other than Michael’s monologue. But as Michael works himself up to a fever pitch about a flirty text message gone unanswered, we hear a ping — and all his worries were for nothing.

It’s here that the immersive experience begins. Upon entering the theatre, audience members are handed a set of headphones. From here on out, we're no longer Michael’s audience — we're inside his head, with the sound happening through the house speakers representing the external world and the sound inside the headphones representing his inner thoughts. Not only are we pelted by relentless voices — he calls them “hecklers” — but we also experience what he refers to as the “slight hearing loss” he’s experienced since he was four years old, with some voices in the external world sounding muffled or far away.

In an attempt to analyze his lifelong failure at relationships, Michael takes us, via the headphones, through meaningful relationships of the last 40 years of his life. But they’re not all romantic. Michael presents us with moments in his head as he was forming pivotal relationships with his mother, his middle-school crush, his first real girlfriend, and more, all distorted by his own “hecklers” and the persistent reality of his poor hearing.

The atmospheric experience of entering Michael’s head is effectively pulled off by the headphones and sound design, but the message is fractured. The progressive structure of the show makes it feel as though Michael is building to a personal revelation about his treatment of past partners (particularly “Rebecca,” featured in chapter three of five), or how his childhood trauma has informed his romantic and platonic relationships. But these loose ends are never addressed in the face of the admittedly profound revelation that closes the show.

No spoilers about the end of Love Me will be revealed here. Perhaps the story changed course in the final stages of writing to accommodate for this new development, but Michael nonetheless received a heartfelt standing ovation at my performance. It was well earned for the palpable, poignant shift he manages to achieve in the final minutes of the show.

Love Me summary

Comedian Drew Michael is 41 and single, has never been married, and has never been with the same person for more than a year. In his solo show Love Me, he sets out to analyze the loves of his life in five chapters, ranging from everyone’s first love, “Mom,” to his relationship with his audience as a stand-up comedian. Experienced partially via headphones to mimic the effect of being inside Michael’s head, Love Me takes the audience — and Michael — from his childhood to a pivotal moment in his late 30s that changed everything for him.

What to expect at Love Me

Love Me is designed to be fully accessible for both deaf and hearing people, and anyone can request an iPad with closed captions — a topic close to Michael’s heart. He brings up the subject in one of his earliest bits in the show, sharing an anecdote about arguing over closed captioning with the first friend he ever revealed his hearing loss to.

Directed by Prashanth Venkataramanujam, Love Me bears the distinctive mark of Michael’s comedy, but with a marked vulnerability that breaks through his rough exterior more and more as the show goes on. The sound design in and out of the headphones is extremely effective for telling Michael’s story, and the music swells, which set the tone of each new chapter, are reminiscent of the interludes in Disney’s Fantasia. However, for those sensitive to loud noises, the sound can sometimes overwhelm the small space of the SoHo Playhouse.

Love Me runs 75 minutes with no intermission.

Who should see Love Me

• Fans of Drew Michael’s previous work, such as his HBO stand-up specials Drew Michael and Red Blue Green or his writing for Saturday Night Live, will want to see this evolution of his style.
• Fans of solo shows will find the immersive headphone experience of Love Me to be a unique offering and, by the end, unexpectedly moving.
• Presented in partnership with Deaf West Theatre, accessibility for both Deaf and hearing people was a key aspect in designing the experience of Love Me, and audience members interested in a fully accessible performance will want to check out this show.

Learn more about Love Me off Broadway

Drew Michael’s solo show Love Me is a unique, if sometimes rough-around-the-edges, immersive experience with a poignant ending that feels like a final puzzle piece slotting into place.

Learn more and get Love Me tickets on New York Theatre Guide. Love Me is at SoHo Playhouse through November 22.

Photo credit: Drew Michael in Love Me off Broadway. (Photos by Curtis Brown)