NEW YORK — On Jan. 25, 2025, Billy Crystal’s Los Angeles home of 46 years burned down due to the Palisades Fire, part of the massively destructive wildfires that torched a hefty chunk of Southern California.
None of Crystal’s family was hurt, thankfully. (The Palisades Fire killed 12 people and destroyed nearly 7,000 structures, not all of which were insured like Casa Crystal.) But the home, a 1930s ranch-style structure with a prior Hollywood pedigree, was burned to a crisp, along with all of Crystal’s prized possessions, including the 78-year-old star’s beloved baseball memorabilia and the keepsakes from the longtime Oscar host’s storied movie and TV careers.
And yet, remarkably enough, you leave Crystal’s sweet, laugh-filled new solo show, “860,” the title an homage to his address, actually envious of Crystal.
That’s not because Crystal soft-pedals the emotional horror of returning to your home to find charred remains after watching, helpless, as flames took the locus of all your best memories. On the contrary, that is the content of much of this show, drawing as it does from contemporaneous video footage of the disaster and its aftermath. It’s that this most sentimental of comedic performances makes such a formidable case that stuff doesn’t really matter very much, not when you have a saintly wife (Janice) of 56 years, whose presence apparently borders on the heavenly, two wonderful daughters, four grandchildren and a clutch of great friends.
And, of course, a massive sense of accomplishment, having starred in hit movies like “When Harry Met Sally” and “The Princess Bride,” spent nine years cracking Jack Nicholson up at the Oscars and courtside at the Lakers, and having played the first openly gay sitcom character on a U.S. network in “Soap” (despite not being gay yourself).
The other thing Crystal had in a world where most of us have to move around for work or family is a stable, multi-decade home he truly loved. I suspect a good portion of his audience listening to him rhapsodize about the fish in his pond, his breezeway into the arms of his wife, even his closet door, wonders why they had not stayed put themselves, either in the real estate sense or the relationship sense, and notes the cushioning of the rich and famous in America, even after so terrible a fire. The designer Scott Pask even re-creates Crystal’s lost office as his set. How fortunate to have that option.
Hit your late 70s, though, and you are not cushioned from bereavement, and Crystal’s deep and profound sorrow at the loss of his director and friend Rob Reiner, not to mention Robin Williams, are very much present in the show, even if he is too much of a servant of his audience to base his entire production around how life re-orders its winners and losers in one’s late years, when health and family tend to knock professional accomplishments back to Earth.
I wish Crystal had lingered longer in those areas, to be honest, rather than wasting the middle of his 90-minute show on what feels like a greatest-hits retrospective, the kind of clip job I remember watching Mickey Rooney and others like him do at the end of their careers. I see the temptation, of course; fans like the memories, and it’s tempting as one’s resume ages to want to remind the callow youths of one’s accomplishments. But we don’t need to know who came up with the line, “I’ll have what she’s having.” Crystal is an A-list star and, to my mind, should be above any self-justification.
Still, his comedy is born of a remarkable sense of his own rootedness, and houses have served him well as metaphors. I well remember his prior solo show about growing up in Long Beach on Long Island, “700 Sundays,” a beautiful piece in which Crystal revealed himself to be very much aware of the paradoxical pain and privilege of his own childhood, a stage of life that for Crystal meant the loss of his father when he was just 15 years old. I saw that show three times and even took the train out to Long Beach to take a look for myself at what place had created this genius of comedy. Few clues remained. They moved to Los Angeles with Crystal.
In the best parts of “860,” a bookend of sorts with “700” (which Crystal also performed in Chicago), you get the wise thoughts of one of America’s greatest comedians, a link to the Borscht Belt of old that younger comics simply cannot access because those comedians now are almost all dead. Crystal is the rare talent who always has been able to dispense the warmth of laughter and then immediately unplug the flow of treacle. If, like me, you are a fan, you will find much to enjoy in director Scott Ellis’ classy but strikingly intimate production. But even allowing for Broadway expectations, the self-mythologizing in this newest piece feels like a lot, given how many others lost so much more.
Crystal remains, for me, a vital, in-the-moment artist. He has now committed himself to the service of reminding us all that laughter in the face of loss is a good life philosophy, given the paucity of other viable options.
Keep going, Mr. Crystal. You’ve expunged the fire now. Don’t look back too much now.
Chris Jones is a Tribune critic
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At the Imperial Theatre, 249 W. 45th St., New York; www.billycrystal860.com