No, Reed Sandridge giving me $10 did not buy a good review.
Sandridge concludes a play about his year spent giving a $10 bill each day to a stranger by asking the crowd to imagine what they would do with the money. Despite clutching onto my notepad for dear life and staring straight ahead, his latest Alexander Hamilton landed with me. My review is not for sale; I’m giving the money away to someone else, just like 17 percent of the people he gave money to did. But cash aside, A Year of Giving is among the best shows I’ve ever seen at the Capital Fringe Festival.
The play derives its name from a blog the protagonist kept to document a unique, year-long experiment. Laid off from his job at a D.C. non-profit, searching for a sense of purpose to get him out of bed each morning and inspired by the compass of his deceased mother, he sees the mission of giving away small sums of money, even as he is not making any himself, as a way to make a statement about human kindness through the stories of the people he would meet.
Patrick Miller, with the backing of the Rockville Little Theater, saw the potential to adapt the feel good story for the stage, Miller serving as producer and an actor in the production. Melanie Papasian, with a background in set design but no scriptwriting to her credit, set out to turn the project into a play. It’s a magnificent rookie performance. Scenes are woven beautifully together with Sandridge stepping in and out to earnestly narrate, encouragement from his Professionals in Transition support group, the responses from blog commenters who shout in anger at the woman who rips up his money or send supplies and cash to further support some of his new friends who’s stories he has posted on his Lend a Hand Page, and the gradual posting of photos of his 365 new friends.
And just when you think it’s so sincere, so much of a self-pat on the back for a deed well done you could vomit, you may find yourself starting to tear up, just as Sandridge comes close to when sharing how one interaction or another turns out. It succeeds in telling a tale about individual human stories about human kindness.
A Year of Giving
Remaining performances: Saturday, July 28 at 6 p.m.
At the Goethe Institute – Gallery, 812 7th St. NW
