Number 14

photo: David Cooper

Back in town almost ten years after its first Drama-Desk nominated run, the Axis Theatre's Number 14 is a wonderful physical comedy (with masks! Lots of borderline-creepy cool masks!) that parents will be more than happy to sit through for the sake of their six to ten year olds. All of the skits involve strangers interacting on a city bus and almost all are winners: the buck-toothed neatfreak who has to share his seat with a slob who's hacking up a lung, the two hipsters who negotiate a date by holding up different pictures from the magazines they're reading, the line of suit and tie corporates who move as if one. Sure, the show is slapdash and isn't held together by anything more than the sentiment in one of its song lyrics ("Everyone is human on the Number 14"), and the show veers off course once or twice with (benign) social commentary, but with a runtime of just over an hour and so much giggle-inducing slapstick and jokery, the grin doesn't have time to leave your face.