by Caitlin Murphy
Joe De Paul’s many years touring with Cirque du Soleil, honing his clowning skills, are on delightful display in his self-written one-man show. Directed by Aline Muheim, Placebo features De Paul as a non-plussed lab technician, mysteriously forced to wait (in front of us, the audience) before he is allowed to commence his daily intakes (as it turns out, of us, the audience). In his desperate attempt to fill the awkward absence, he kills time by proudly showing off his karate moves, anthropomorphizing his potted fern, fumbling around with office supplies, calling himself from cell phone to land line, obsessively adjusting the furniture, and playing basketball with the garbage pail.
