Review: Speed is Emotional

Speed is Emo­tion­al
Writ­ten and per­formed by Jo Rander­son

Speed is Emo­tion­al is exactly what it sounds like: fast, funny, a little chaot­ic, and com­pletely its own thing.

Writ­ten and per­formed by Jo Rander­son, the show dives head­first into what it feels like to live with ADHD. Rander­son invites any­one with a neurodi­ver­gent brain, and any­one who loves someone with one, to come along for the ride. The audi­ence laughs their way through the strange, famil­i­ar, and some­times exhaust­ing quirks of an ADHD mind.

If you’ve seen work from Bar­bar­i­an Pro­duc­tions before, the vibe will feel famil­i­ar: chaot­ic, absurd, play­ful, a little rough around the edges in the best pos­sible way. The show jumps between stor­ies, ana­lo­gies, props, and visu­al gags that explain how an ADHD brain works.

One of the most relat­able threads for me was the sense that the world around you is mov­ing… pain­fully… slowly. The urge to talk faster, move faster, juggle ten things at once. That buzz­ing intern­al feel­ing of why is this tak­ing so long? Rander­son cap­tures that pace per­fectly. For people with ADHD, it feels like recog­ni­tion. For every­one else, it’s a win­dow into a com­pletely dif­fer­ent oper­at­ing sys­tem.

The set deserves a spe­cial shout-out. A giant para­chute rigged with pul­leys rises and falls with Randerson’s move­ment, like the set itself is a char­ac­ter in the per­form­ance. Com­bined with visu­als that pop up through­out the show, the whole thing feels like an “acid-trip Power­Point”.

Anoth­er high­light is the onstage chem­istry between Rander­son and Elli­ot Vaughan, who is a strong con­tender for Best Sup­port­ing Role.  While run­ning the sound cues, Elli­ot and Jo have con­tin­ous back-and-forth through­out the per­form­ance deliv­er­ing sharp, well-timed com­edy that lifts the per­form­ance to anoth­er level.

The show is a joy­ful and affirm­ing exper­i­ence for neurodi­ver­gent audi­ences. Instead of focus­ing only on the chal­lenges, it shines a light on the strengths, cre­ativ­ity, and resi­li­ence that come with liv­ing in a brain wired a little dif­fer­ently.

The final music­al moment with the band is a big, cel­eb­rat­ory fin­ish.  I think this per­haps runs longer than it needs to. I loved how Jo invites the audi­ence into karaoke at the end and I won­der if this invit­a­tion of audi­ence par­ti­cip­a­tion could hap­pen earli­er with the band.

There’s also room for the show to grow. Much of the story sits with­in Randerson’s own exper­i­ence, but there’s a hil­ari­ous moment where their sons pop their heads through the set to offer com­ment­ary on life with an ADHD par­ent. It’s a bril­liant gag, and expand­ing that idea by bring­ing in the per­spect­ives of people who orbit Randerson’s whirl­wind brain could open the piece to dive bey­ond the self-nar­rat­ive.

For those with sens­ory sens­it­iv­ity, at times the show can get loud and intense. Sit­ting near an aisle or bring­ing earplugs could help if you need a breath­er.

Much like people who live with ADHD, Speed is Emo­tion­al doesn’t try to tidy things up too neatly. It’s messy, invent­ive, heart­felt and very funny. A show that feels like spend­ing an hour inside someone else’s brain and dis­cov­er­ing it’s a pretty great place to be.