Wil Greenway: For The Ground That Grew Me

The opening of storyteller and comedian Wil Greenway's performance does an admirable impression of a very nice show. Will Galloway and Kathryn Langshaw are playing a song that Zooey Deschanel would be proud of, all xylophone plunk and acoustic guitar. They're calm in sky blue, her dress patterned with serene floating clouds.

But the dreamy haze thickens into something darker and stormier soon after Greenway opens his mouth: he praises us for being here, for being alive, but can't drag his thoughts from what it would be like if we were all dead. He likens the afterlife to the stench of vomit, a metallic warning whiff that endures long after the chunks are gone.

It's a queasy metaphor, and they only get more pungent. Greenway's narrative weaves naseously through the fallen branches of his own family tree, pausing to throw up gruesome anecdotes on the way. He touches on vivid memories of childhood accidents and present day chance meetings, some real, some imagined.

Greenway's turn of phrase is sharp and evocative as he needles away at his own failings, touching on drunken nights out and the sacrifices he's made to tell stories. But the structure of his performance is too muddied to give these dug-up memories the emotional clout they deserve. And as his guitar and xylophone-wielding band return to swell his performance to a climax, he seems to sag towards an ending that's both vague and solemn.