For John Lithgow’s touring one-man show, all the actor needs is a chair and a book. “My only props,” he says. As the rave reviews of “Stories by Heart” indicate, one doesn’t need anything more for an emotional, hilarious night out in the company of one of America’s busiest and most versatile actors.
Lithgow has made a career of playing family men with strange secrets. In “3rd Rock From the Sun,” he was an alien; in his Emmy- and Golden Globe-winning turn in last season’s “Dexter,” he was a serial killer. But in his one-man show — which he’s been performing and perfecting since 2008 — audiences find that behind the family man is a loving son, who uses the power of storytelling to bring his father out of a health-based depression.