LIKE A GOOD NEIGHBOR
Presented by Theaterlab as part of
Melting Plot: a festival of interactive works in the making
Written and Performed by Jake Alexander
Directed by Hayley Moir
Theaterlab, 357 West 36th Street, 3rd floor, in Manhattan
May 19, 2026 - May 31, 2026
Like most solo shows, Like a Good Neighbor begins with a story. Unlike most solo shows, it quickly reveals that the story is merely a pretext for something far more ambitious: the creation of a temporary community. Written and performed by Jake Alexander and directed with a light, unobtrusive touch by Hayley Moir, this enchanting hour-long work occupies the increasingly crowded territory between theater, confession, and social experiment. Yet Alexander finds a singular tone all his own—part neighborhood philosopher, part eager camp counselor, part slightly overwhelmed Mister Rogers for an age that has forgotten how to trust sincerity.
The ostensible plot concerns Alexander’s attempt to rescue a stray cat named Scratch from an alley behind his Washington Heights apartment. It sounds simple enough. He had even enlisted the help of the bodega manager. Of course, Scratch proves stubbornly resistant to salvation, and what begins as a feline rescue mission spirals into a meditation on friendship, bullying, belonging, and the sometimes painful obligations we impose upon ourselves in the name of kindness. The cat becomes less a character than a catalyst, a furry embodiment of a question that haunts the evening: what do we owe one another, particularly when our help is unwanted, ineffective, or exhausting?
Alexander is a gifted storyteller, capable of transforming the smallest autobiographical detail into a comic set piece without sacrificing emotional truth. In a cozy white room softened by the sound of pattering rain and subtle shifts of light, he invites the audience directly into what feels like his internal monologue. The atmosphere is intimate without being precious. Even as the narrative wanders through blood, tears, embarrassment, and genuine trauma, Alexander's self-deprecating humor keeps the evening buoyant. He possesses that rare theatrical quality of making vulnerability appear not brave but natural, as though honesty were simply the most practical way of moving through the world.
The production transforms the humble “clothing chair”—that familiar domestic monument to garments neither quite dirty nor sufficiently clean—into a quietly eloquent metaphor for the psyche itself. What begins as an innocuous accumulation of sweaters, trousers, and abandoned intentions gradually assumes the weight of an emotional landscape, each added layer suggesting anxieties deferred, decisions postponed, and identities shed and reclaimed. In the show’s imaginative dramaturgy, household clutter becomes a cartography of the inner life, revealing how the disorder we tolerate in our living spaces often mirrors the unrulier, less visible disarray of the mind. Chances are there might even be more than one clothing chair while his fiancee is away entertaining on a cruise ship for six months.
The production’s most distinctive feature is its participatory framework. Upon entering, audience members are invited to answer a deceptively simple question: “What do you need help with?” Throughout the performance, Alexander periodically pauses his own story to address those responses in real time. The results are astonishingly entertaining. One moment he is wrestling with the emotional fallout of the Scratch saga; the next he is devising solutions for insomnia, brainstorming ways to get people (especially strangers) to attend a party, or attempting, with touching ingenuity, to fulfill a request to help this writer find ways to carve out more time for writing, even if that means having to say “NO” to proposed assignments sometimes. What could have felt gimmicky instead becomes the evening’s beating heart. Alexander listens with such genuine curiosity that even the most whimsical exchanges acquire unexpected emotional weight.
What emerges is a fascinating inversion of contemporary performance culture. Many autobiographical shows ask audiences to witness suffering; Like a Good Neighbor asks audiences to help carry it. Alexander’s generosity is not performative but reciprocal. His eagerness to be liked—an impulse that another artist might conceal or mock—becomes the source of the show’s emotional power. He transforms a hunger for validation into a practice of empathy, demonstrating that attentiveness itself can be a creative act. By the end, a room full of strangers feels improbably connected, not because anyone has been forced into participation, but because Alexander makes participation feel like an invitation rather than an obligation.
What lingers for an audience long after the performance is not merely the tale of Scratch, delightful though it is, but the show’s larger argument about care. Alexander understands that being a good neighbor is often messy, inconvenient, and occasionally heartbreaking. The desire to help others can leave us wounded; the burdens we carry for one another can sometimes become too heavy. Yet Like a Good Neighbor insists, with remarkable warmth and without a trace of sentimentality, that the effort remains worthwhile. In an era that often rewards irony over earnestness, Alexander has created something quietly radical: a theatrical experience built on the proposition that kindness is not naïve but necessary. The result is one of those rare evenings that leaves its audience feeling not merely entertained, but enlarged.
Click HERE for tickets.
Review by Tony Marinelli.
Published by Theatre Beyond Broadway on June 24, 2026. All rights reserved.
