{"id":785898,"date":"2026-07-07T11:04:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-07T11:04:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/785898\/"},"modified":"2026-07-07T11:04:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-07T11:04:08","slug":"brownstein-montreal-has-a-chapter-in-witty-raconteur-adam-gopniks-new-york-stories","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/785898\/","title":{"rendered":"Brownstein: Montreal has a chapter in witty raconteur Adam Gopnik’s New York stories"},"content":{"rendered":"

His one-man show, a confessional, is called Adam Gopnik\u2019s New York, exploring all facets of the award-winning New Yorker magazine writer\u2019s<\/a> life, from his fascination with Central Park to the city\u2019s runaway rat population to his failed attempts at psychoanalysis \u2014 \u201cthe most unsuccessful in the history of therapy.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Gopnik\u2019s adventure originates in Montreal, where the McGill University grad grew up and picked up a neurosis or two, not to mention a lifelong obsession with the Habs. Gopnik still insists: \u201cMontreal is really my hometown.\u201d<\/p>\n

So it\u2019s only fitting that the much-acclaimed Adam Gopnik\u2019s New York \u2014 produced by Steve Martin and Tony Award winner James L. Nederlander \u2014 will hit town at the Segal Centre for a one-night stand on Sept. 8. Tickets go on sale Tuesday.<\/p>\n

The show first opened to sold-out audiences at New York City\u2019s Lincoln Center in 2025 and continues to draw full houses across North America and abroad. It played, sandwiched between Shakespeare\u2019s The Tempest and Othello, this past weekend at Ontario\u2019s Stratford Festival with the title Talk Therapy \u2014 which was what Gopnik originally called the play.<\/p>\n

\u201cAdam Gopnik\u2019s New York was meeting with a certain resistance from some Canadian bookers,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

A 40-year staffer at the New Yorker with three National Magazine Awards and more than a dozen books to his credit, Gopnik brings overachievement to a whole new level. And with a handful of plays to his name, he has also become a much sought-after witty raconteur in the tradition of the late, great Spalding Gray.<\/p>\n

Adam Gopnik\u2019s New York came about as a result of his regular breakfast conversations with his longtime buddy Martin, who urged him to bring a collection of his life stories to the stage.<\/p>\n

\u201cI told Steve that, in fact, I had done a one-man show about my life, but he told me: \u2018No, not a show where you try to be funny,\u2019\u201d Gopnik says in a phone interview from Stratford. \u201cI thought it was a sort of reproach. He said: \u2018You don\u2019t do standup. I want you to do a one-man show where you leap from subject to subject, the way you do with me over our breakfasts. That\u2019s what would be riveting.\u2019 <\/p>\n

\u201cAll I could say was: \u2018Really?\u2019 He then said he\u2019d love to produce it.\u201d<\/p>\n

So Gopnik and his filmmaker wife, Martha Parker, went to a nearby restaurant and wrote down 40 of his favourite riffs with crayons on the paper tablecloth. And the play eventually came together in his living room, with Parker and their daughter Olivia.<\/p>\n

\u201cFinally, I felt that I had something, based on my bizarre psychoanalysis in the \u201990s \u2014 where I would put my elderly psychoanalyst to sleep. I told Steve and he said: \u2018Great! Why don\u2019t you come over to my apartment and do it for me and a couple of my friends?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Turns out Martin\u2019s friends for this makeshift audition were Martin Short, John Mulaney, Lorne Michaels and \u2014 a Gopnik idol \u2014 Monty Pythoneer and pioneer Eric Idle.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo there I am trying to present this show among these master entertainers.\u00a0 I was (on the verge of being nauseous), but I did it. And it worked. It was funny. What Steve had really meant is that it would be funny if I didn\u2019t try to be.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gopnik was further instructed by famed Broadway actor Ra\u00fal Esparza, also in attendance, that success would come if he could \u201csculpt the piece for the stage.\u201d So they spent five months working in a rehearsal studio, learning how to sculpt.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was an unimaginable education on the architecture of drama, and we tried it out at Lincoln Center. That led to the initial three-week run, and now I\u2019m on the road with it. I feel like I\u2019m the last of the vaudevillians. I just came from some shows in London. It\u2019s been wild.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gopnik is delighted about bringing the play to his hometown.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe show totally began from and is rooted in Montreal, from where Martha and I were getting on a bus from Montreal on our way to begin a new life in New York,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s all about two kids leaving Kansas to come to Oz. The show is also about importing Canadian values into New York, where you\u2019re constantly bemused in a kind of Alice in Wonderland-like way by the absence of common sense in everyone you meet.\u201d<\/p>\n

Regardless of his acting commitments, Gopnik continues to write essays feverishly \u2014 on a vast range of subjects \u2014 for the New Yorker.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese days, I\u2019m compelled to write as seriously if not desperately about the transformation of America. That has been my consuming subject for a decade. But I still see my primary obligation as being able to entertain \u2014 not in the sense of diverting or escapism, but to delight in its attack. I see myself as a performer on the page. I genuinely love writing. That\u2019s why I never wanted to be an academic.\u201d<\/p>\n

Unlike his parents.<\/p>\n

Born in Philadelphia, Gopnik moved to Montreal when he was 11. His mother landed a teaching job at Universit\u00e9 de Montr\u00e9al before becoming a linguistics prof at McGill. His dad, also a professor, was dean of students at McGill for 20 years. Like Gopnik, his four sisters are McGill graduates.<\/p>\n

Gopnik recalls how the family had caught Expo 67 and how they were smitten by Montreal, thus prompting the move. He also recalls the family reading Le Devoir and La Presse and all the kids going to French-speaking schools prior to McGill.<\/p>\n

Gopnik\u2019s fluent French was to come in handy at the New Yorker, which had him posted in Paris for six years and where he wrote the bestseller Paris to the Moon. He\u00a0was\u00a0awarded the medal of Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by France in 2013, and in 2021 he was named a\u00a0Chevalier in the L\u00e9gion d\u2019honneur \u201cfor being an interpreter of French civilization to Americans.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Gopnik likes to say he really\u00a0learned French by listening to legendary Canadiens broadcaster Ren\u00e9 Lecavalier for the spoken word and reading R\u00e9jean Tremblay in La Presse for the written word.<\/p>\n

Enough about New York and theatre and writing. Back to his ever-consuming love: hockey, and how he had fantasized about his beloved Habs<\/a> going all the way this season after a 33-year Stanley Cup dry spell.<\/p>\n

\t\tEditor\u2019s Picks\t<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been a rabid Habs fan for 60 years and have now turned my son Luke into an equally crazed one. I\u2019ve seen some of the best Canadiens teams over the \u201970s and \u201980s, but we\u2019ve never had a more thrilling, exciting team to watch than this one. But I\u2019m indignant because a team goes through this 82-game marathon schedule that rewards a certain kind of play. Then they stage this demolition derby in the playoffs, where all the skill, finesse and brilliance displayed all year gets literally beaten down. Lane Hutson is the single most gifted player with the most magical skills since Guy Lafleur, and there he is being clubbed over the head \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t get Gopnik started. Too late.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow I\u2019m pumped for next season,\u201d he says. \u201cI\u2019ve been trying to enthuse people in Stratford about a hockey musical. We\u2019ve never had one before about how the Canadiens came into existence. Sadly, I\u2019ve had no progress on that at Stratford.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not yet.<\/p>\n

Adam Gopnik\u2019s New York plays the Segal Centre on Sept. 8. Tickets cost $75 to $80 and will be available as of 9 a.m. Tuesday at 514-739-7944 or\u00a0segalcentre.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n

bbrownstein@postmedia.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"His one-man show, a confessional, is called Adam Gopnik\u2019s New York, exploring all facets of the award-winning New…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":785899,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194292],"tags":[49,48,2338],"class_list":["post-785898","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-montreal","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-montreal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/785898","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=785898"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/785898\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/785899"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=785898"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=785898"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=785898"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}