Honey, I’m Home a Hilarious Solo Show at Open Eye Theatre

Honey, I’m Home is Madeleine Rowe’s one house show which combines comic clowning, inspired physical theater and very clever writing. It’s part of Open Eye Theatre’s 2024 Guest Artist Series, and a remount of a successful run at The Southern Theater in 2022. I recently saw Rowe in Every Christmas Story Ever Told (And Then Some) at Yellow Tree Theatre and found her clowning most enjoyable. I expected some laughs, what I got were more laughs than you can shake a plunger at. I could explain that but like a lot of comedy shows the fun is in the unexpected, the laughs come from your spontaneous response to what his being presented. Open Eye Theatre is such a small but wonderful theater space, I’ve seen some of my favorite performances in this little theater with it’s tiny brick enclosed stage that usually feels like it’s about eight feet by eight feet. Tonight though, it felt especially spacious, possibly because it looked to have been freshly mown. Rowe plays a house for sale and it’s open house day so she’s a little bit excited. She’s very welcoming and even gives us, the audience, a pre-open house tour. That should give you the gist of the show. The entire performance is a direct address to the audience and you are expected to join in. The notoriously anti-audience participation Blogger Cherry and Spoon was able to avoid joining the show but I believe had a wonderful time with it as well. So don’t let that put you off.

Rowe is a first rate clown and performer, brave and impishly mischievous, she has the audience in stitches for 70 minutes straight, which is another wonderful aspect of the show, it’s about 70 minutes long and so no need for those annoying intermissions. Rowe could hold the audience all on her own without set and props and costumes and dummies, but the addition of those things pushed this into the realm of something really special. Roofs off to I’m Staying Home with Madeleine Rowe and Michael Torsch for their Set Design. Sound Design by Dan Dukich and Lighting by Ariel Pinkerton add the perfect touches. Whoever designed the projections and puppet work deserves a big round of applause, there’s a duet sung with the aid of those elements that is a moment where I realized this was exactly what I needed tonight. It was a hard day today and I almost stayed home to process, I’m so glad I didn’t as Madeleine Rowe and her brilliant show lifted me up when I most needed it. Honey, I’m Home runs through February 24th at Open Eye Theatre in South Minneapolis for more information and to purchase tickets go to https://www.openeyetheatre.org/honey-im-home

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