Laurence Fishburne is an award-winning actor who’s been in the business for more than half a century, debuting on TV at age 10, in the movies at age 12, and in a major motion picture,  “Apocalypse Now” at age 15.  Since then he has acted in more than seventy films that have collectively grossed more than $7.5 billion; the best-known of his film roles are probably the ones in The Matrix Trilogy, the John Wick franchise, Contagion, and as Ike Turner in the What’s Love Got to Do with It  for which he was Oscar-nominated. He’s performed Off Broadway seven times, and on Broadway four, most recently in “American Buffalo” in 2022, thirty years after he won a Tony for his Broadway debut in August Wilson’s “Two Trains Running.”

Just about none of this is in “Like They Do in the Movies,” Fishburne’s solo show, which he’s performing at the Perelman Performing Arts Center through March 31. Some of these biographical facts are listed in the playbill for the show; there’s also a collage of posters from some of his best-known film roles projected onto the screen behind him when he first appears. But in the more than two hours that he’s on stage – leaving only for intermission and to change outfits   – he says almost nothing about his career as an actor, producer and director.

What does he say?

He tells stories. The stories, in eight different scenes or segments, range from harrowing to comic, and sometimes both; and are, he says, sometimes true, sometimes false, sometimes both: He is an actor and a storyteller, he explains, “which is a polite way of saying I’ve been a bullshit artist all my life.” Fishburne mixes recollections and impersonations that seem connected only by his talent and intelligence. There is no obvious overall theme or continuous narrative or explicit thread. This is how “Like They Do in the Movies” differs from the solo shows by the three theater artists who have apparently inspired this piece: Among the many people Fishburne thanks on a page In the playbill are “Dr. Whoopi Goldberg, John Leguizamo, and Anna Deavere Smith, for showing me the way.”

Why is it called “Like They Do in the Movies,” when it’s not about the movies?

The answer is sly. The title is taken from a comment by one of the people he impersonates, a survivor of Hurricane Katrina, who says at one point: “People don’t die in real life like they do in the movies.” Here is a brief video excerpt from that story, which at the moment is taking place on the roof of a hospital in New Orleans that is full of dead and dying people:

Perhaps needless to say, the president didn’t rescue them; Air Force One flew over the roof and disappeared. But eventually they did make it – which Fishburne makes clear by showing us a photograph of the man with his family. This is also how we’re we’re assured that this is one of the true stories.

His first stories are about his mother, Hattie Bell, a teacher with a Masters from Columbia University, who led a charm school out of her home, managed her son’s career for the first ten years, had artistic aspirations of her own, and had “an undiagnosed form of mental illness.” She also, he tells us, abused him from the ages of 7 to 11 – which he says he didn’t remember until he had become an adult many years later.

His second set of stories are about his father, which are no less candid, if not quite as explosive. His parents never lived together; he only saw his father once a month. They didn’t seem to have much in common; his father liked “fishing and fucking.” Fishburne “loved dressing up” and lipsyncing to Elton John – which perhaps explains why he’s wearing a flowing black robe with sequins and a hood. (The outfit in the photograph and the video is the only one in the show that resembles street clothes – unless the street is in Disney World.) He punctuates many of his stories about his mother and father with “More about that later.”  The later comes at the end.

In these segments talking about his parents, he is Laurence. In the five other segments, the character is talking to Laurence.

Besides the Katrina survivor, there is a colorful subway commuter who tells a convoluted comic tale that involves (but is not limited to) pretending to be a cop in order to scare away two menacing fare-beaters, and then being arrested for impersonating an officer; an enterprising street philosopher who lives on the street; an expatriate who runs a whorehouse in Australia and offers Laurence his wife. Then there is Lamont, a retired police officer whose many stories include having killed someone who annoyed him. He alternates between knitting, and standing up and telling people to move on, there’s nothing to see here, stop staring. It took a few of these for me to realize that Lamont was moonlighting as a bodyguard on a movie set, keeping away the gawkers from Laurence the movie star.

Like They Do In the Movies
PAC NYC through March 31
Running time: Two hours and 30 minutes including one intermission
Tickets: $64 – $158
Written and performed by Laurence Fishburne
Directed by Leonard Foglia
Scenic Design by Neil Patel
Lighting Design by Tyler Micoleau
Sound Design by Justin Ellington
Projection Design by Elaine J. McCarthy