I was turned around in my seat talking briefly to Bill Cosby, seated behind me. Lillard first met Cosby on the set of 1996’s Jack, where he struck up a conversation about nuclear non-proliferation versus non-nuclear pro-proliferation. Since then, Bill Cosby comes to all of his plays. Every performance.

The house lights went down, so Bill and I agreed that we would speak during intermission. “I’m looking forward to hearing what you think about this,” he said. Indeed, so was I.

The crowd eventually became silent (opening night audiences take longer to quiet down than do other audiences) and the pre-recorded sound of a child on a tricycle filled the Belasco Theatre. I suspect it filled most of West 44th Street. The stage sat empty and the audio looped and looped for about four minutes.

Then birds began chirping.

Then rain began falling.

Then chimpanzees began betting on horses.

Then silverware started falling.

A few minutes later, the sound of an airplane passing overhead joined the chorus of sound effects.

Then he appeared; the crowd erupted with applause for Matthew Lillard, riding an oversized-so-as-to-make-him-appear-smaller tricycle. Some members of the audience even stood. Many of them were obviously Matthew Lillard fans, but I suspect that the primary reason for the ovation was simply because the crowd was just glad to see Lillard in good health—able to drive a tricycle even!—after all the press about his embarrassing huffing addiction.

Sidney Poitier was in a basket on the front of the tricycle. He was wearing a crown and two magnificent glowing owl wings and was holding a Nobel Prize.

“I have Lou Gehrig's Disease,” Matthew Lillard started, “and I’m not sure what I can do about it.”

After that, Sidney Poitier started singing.

The rest of the first act moved forward pretty slowly. It was great seeing Broadway royalty like Victor Garber (as “Pops”), Patty Lupone (as “Moms”), Harris Yulin (as “Aunty Maryweather” and “Lou Gehrig”) and Chevy Chase (as “Moms At Fourteen”) give heartbreaking and mind-boggling and heart-boggling performances. But I couldn’t help but think of how much more mind-breaking and heart-minding it had been to see the original version in which Lillard played all the parts, relying only on his trusty “Basket of Scarves” to create costumes whereby the audience could possibly differentiate the characters.

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