THE NEW YORK TIMES
Nov. 12, 1998 -- The Arts
By LAWRENCE VAN GELDER

METAMURPHOSIS MINOR A one-man comedy show. Presented by The 42nd Street Inc. At the New Victory Theater, 209 West 42nd St. Manhattan.
WITH: Tom Murphy

A Comic Succeeds at Spectacular Failure

Some people practice stand-up comedy. Tom Murphy belongs to the fall-down school. At the New Victory theater, he does practically nothing right. That's why he is funny.

Mr. Murphy falls down in the aisle. He stumbles over the stairs. He trips over chairs. When he tries to blow up a balloon, it escapes like a lunatic eel into the audience. When he tries to assemble a ladder, he pinches his hand and seeks a maternal kiss to recover from his boo-boo. When he mounts his unicycle, he needs the curtain for a security blanket. And sometimes he sucks his thumb. All the while children - and adults, too - laugh. But the adults don't squeal as much. Mr. Murphy is the talented star of a one-man show called "Metamurphosis Minor," which lasts an hour or so and is a sure-fire cure for the Blahs.

From time to time, Mr. Murphy, a sheepish child in vaudevillian's clothing, makes adults from the audience his accomplices, luring them atop his shoulders on the unicycle, enlisting them as aides while he juggles clubs atop his six-foot-high "unicycle of death" and best of all, practically levitating four of them in what he calls a miracle.

O.K., so Mr. Murphy does a few things right. It must be some sort of consolation for him to know that even if he can't navigate the aisles without falling down, at least he can balance a glass of wine on his forehead and manage to drink it without using his hands or spilling a drop.

But he's not a great ballet dancer, although it remains to be seen if Mikhail Baryshnikov can juggle clubs while working. And while Mr. Murphy has a muscular body and turns muscle-bound body-builders into figures of fun, can he do that as well as Arnold Schwarzenegger?

Mr. Murphy and "Metamurphosis Minor" will be clowning around for four more performances, from tomorrow through Sunday. See it for yourself (and take a small friend).

"Frankfurter Rundschau," Kulturspiegel
12-4-96 Peter Peters

The Tender Dynamo

Clown and Artist, tired macho and funny romantic: Tom Murphy's performance at the New Theatre Hoechst

Tom Murphy not only is a self-described little explosion on a ladder, but also a minor revelation. He accomplishes a synthesis of stupendous agility, world class vaudeville, magical play of the audience, and irresistibly funny entertainment; being from Vermont, and the "Best Clown" at the Paris Circus Festival, Cirque de Demain, and recognizing that Germany might just be the place to be, supports the synthesis even more. And, when eight-to-twelve-minute performances no longer satisfy.

He builds an artful performance out of his vaudeville acts some of which must have taken years of practice to perfect. Murph not only rages ON stage, but also OFF stage, by diving into the audience to solicit help; and, since he always seems to trip on the last step he definitely needs help. Just stand there and hold the unicycle like this, he asks a woman and before she knows he's on the unicycle, carrying her on his shoulders.

Murph fights chairs and floors with his bones. He catches us taking delight in his clumsiness and stage misfortunes, but seems to redeem us at the same time. An audience member is allowed to kiss the bump on his head and, thank God, the escapades on stage are bringing only fictitious pains.

It's a game with a human side, especially when the American brings up his favorite topic, masculinity and the male, and tired of being macho. He shuffles stiffly across the stage in comical bodybuilding mode, posing until the muscles in his face become an extension of his biceps. Ironically, he possesses the body of a model athlete.

Don't be fooled! Tom Murphy is also full of tenderness, warmth, and compassion: an artist who does not use comedy at the expense of his audience. During frantically requested encores, he showed that he is used to a full evening program. He didn't have any more material and needed to rely on age-old tricks, he said. In the end, he actually told jokes about ducks in an apothecary and then explained the punch line. This guy has the caliber for first-rate vaudeville.

Gaggenau Review

Badische Neueste Nachrichten
"Comedy-Clown Murphy: Everything's under Control"

Sometimes you climb high, fall deep. and then generate a lot of laughter. In the case of Tom Murphy it is done on purpose and, as he puts it with a smirk, "It's my job. It is a job that he, the Comedy Clown, does with mastery and great success.

Formerly, this American had to earn people's interest in his contortions and slapstick on the sidewalk; today, his shows only need to be announced and spectators come in hordes and stay until the very end. And so it happened Thursday evening in the Gaggenau-"Cry-Podium" an extraordinary audience and a fantastic artist blended together in perfect harmony.

This meant involving audience members, especially from the front row, in vigorous stage acts and adrenaline boosts- Acts like racing across the stage on his standard unicycle or Deon his "7-feet cycle of death," wildly waving his arms with a worrisome expression on his face, all the while threatening to crash into the audience at any moment. "Don't worry," he assures after a few near misses and with a teasing grin, "everything's under control - after all, I am a professional.

Professional is the right word, especially for someone who puts a glass of wine on his forehead and then drinks it without using his hands or feet, who juggles three [wooden] clubs while balancing on a giant ladder between the posts and beams of the [Gaggenau] "Cry-Podium," who bends down to the ground from his unicycle without failing, or who tickles the funny bone of his audience with continuously squeaking balloons. Just like his surprise back flips, he uses every opportunity to place a joke [or slapstick].

The forty-three year old (Murph) from Vermont is a jack of all clown trades - using acrobatics and lovable clumsiness, a clever play of audience and balancing acts, a "play with fire' and a comforting portion of self-imny. Murph playfully pairs the wonders of the European circus world with the parodies and nonsense of American stand-up comedy; his dramatic mimic almost pales his acts by comparison.

The guy with the cute smile not only conquers the stage by storm the but also the hearts of his enthusiastic audience. "[SO] sweeeeet" is the whisper through the packed rows when this loving guy just can't seem to get it together on stage - but, one couldn't take offense anyway; certainly not at his attempts to prove "what a macho guy I really am" by going through a metamorphosis from macho to ballet dancer back to macho, giving the body-building show of a model athlete in tight-fitting speedos. It is one-man-show with heart - [after all], laughing is the best therapy for stressed souls.

Rhein-Ahr Rundschau
KRIS AHRWEILER
     Comedy-Clown Murph is one of the Greats of our times!

Fantasy,Slapstick,Comedy, high skills, excellent entertainer in his field, MURPH is one of the Greats of our times. A clown with extra class, a stand-up comedian who never actually was standing but mostly laying down in acro- batic postures that made one think he would break arms and legs. Only to jump up again with an artistic twist. Unicycles of all sizes, balls, clubs, balloons, whatever he has in his hands you have the feeling he cannot go wrong. His audience participation skills and humanity put him as a descendent of the great clown, Charlie Rivel.