What a Rush! Star is crazy good in 'Madman'

Geoffrey Rush is insanely great at acting crazy. He proves it nightly at the Brooklyn Academy of Music with his wacky and wonderfully touching tour de force in "The Diary of a Madman."

The play is drawn from a Nikolai Gogol story set in mid-19th-century Russia. As in that short work, the action unfolds as journal entries - some lengthy, some tweet-size - of Aksenti Poprishchin (Rush), a low-level paper-pusher in St. Petersburg.

The view from the drone's crummy attic window provides a concise lay of the land in this sprawling bureaucratic capital: "Palace. Office. Palace. Office. Office. Office."

Thanks to his mind-numbing work and a soul-crushing dead-end infatuation with the boss' daughter, Poprishchin is losing his grip on reality.

And, the point is, he's not alone.

As his delusions deepen, Poprishchin believes he hears dogs talking and follows them to fetch letters they've written. He also convinces himself that he is the heir to the throne of Spain. He is taken away - not to be fitted for a coronation robe, but a straitjacket.

The show marks a sort of full-circle for Rush and director Neil Armfield, a longtime collaborator and outgoing head of the Belvoir Theatre in Sydney, Australia, where this "Madman" began.

Working together from an adaptation by David Holman some 22 years ago, they concocted the show to delight themselves. It caused a stir, launched their careers and led to Rush's Oscar-winning role in "Shine."

If you saw Rush in his 2009 Tony-winning turn as a dying  monarch in "Exit the King," which Armfield directed, you already know the actor is a one-of-a-kind artist - an elasticized living cartoon who looks out-of-control but is always fully in control. His wild eyes, flailing arms and nutty gestures can go from hilarious to heartbreaking in a beat.

Rush has help onstage. Yael Stone is quite moving in three small roles: a Finnish cleaning woman who can't speak Poprishchin's language but still understands him; the unattainable girl he loves, and a bald-headed bedlamite.

In a bright stroke, Paul Cutlan and Erkki Veltheim are offstage musicians whose playing becomes an integral part of Poprishchin's conversation. Also deepening the atmosphere are Tess Schofield's ragtag costumes, Catherine Martin's colorfully exaggerated attic set and Mark Shelton's shadow-casting lighting.

Rush's performance outshines the play. At times, the production gets repetitious and long-winded. Nonetheless, this is a "Diary" to be savored and a descent that's actually uplifting.

You may be interested in the following articles: Electronic Cigarette - A Non Smokers Verdict