This new comedy by Jason Grote about comic books, ghosts, and incest
is all kinds of good: Its humor is brutal, its characters are lively
and bizarre, and its plot is surprising. Instead of wanting to leave
during intermission, I found myself impatient for act two to
begin. Brandon Ryan plays the lead as a whirlwind of anxious tics
and squeaks—and if you were an aspiring comic-book artist who
lived with your neurotic mother, had a massive crush on your
cousin, and saw shape-shifters who shouted in German, you’d be a
whirlwind of tics, too. (Theater Schmeater, 1500 Summit Ave,
324-5801. 8 pm, $18 adv/$21 DOS. Through June 6.)

Brend an Kiley has worked as a child actor in New Orleans, as a member of the junior press corps at the 1988 Republican National Convention, and, for one happy April, as a bootlegger’s assistant in Nicaragua....