VICTOR

Written & Performed by Edgar Oliver

Directed by Randy Sharp; Music by Paul Carbonara

October 2-26, 2019

Wednesdays - Saturdays at 8PM
Adults $30; Seniors/Students $20; Artists/Under 30 $10; First Ten Tickets for each show are $10 | Veterans & Active U.S. Service Members and Their Families, FREE

For over a decade, Axis Theatre Company has served as an incubator and theatrical home for the beloved performer, poet, and storyteller Edgar Oliver, a fixture of the New York downtown scene for over three decades. In deep collaboration with Axis Theatre Company founder Randy Sharp, Oliver has created a body of work that Hilton Als of The New Yorker has described as "so beautiful—so enthralling in its undisguised but never tedious self-absorption, in its command of the spoken word, and in its demand for love."

In VICTOR, Edgar Oliver unravels the details of his nearly twenty-year friendship with Victor Greco, a mentally ill homeless man. Stocky and handsome, Victor reminded Edgar of Popeye the Sailor and shortly after meeting, a mutual attraction of opposites began. Edgar was drawn to the frank masculinity of Victor while Victor was fascinated by the writer in Edgar. And yet, was their connection real? Was it love? Or was Edgar's friendship with Victor, a man who would eventually die alone in the back of an abandoned van, an attempt to seek comfort in another New York ghost, one that Edgar always knew would let him be alone.


writer/performer: Edgar Oliver
director: Randy Sharp
music director: Paul Carbonara
stage manager: Erik Savage
asst. stage manager: Regina Betancourt
light designer: David Zeffren
assistant light designer: Amy Harper
sound design: Paul Carbonara
costume designer: Karl Ruckdeschel
design & set carpentry: Chad Yarborough
sound mixing/engineers: Michael Birnbaum, Chris Bittner
production assistant: Natasha Jacoel-Kaminsky
box office manager: Kara Kirby
website & graphic designer: Ethan Crenson
publicity/PR: Everyman Agency

AXIS COMPANY
Artistic Director - Randy Sharp
Producing Director - Brian Barnhart
Executive Producer - Jeffrey Resnick

Paul Carbonara: Guitar
Sam Quiggins: Cello
Yonatan Gutfeld: Piano

Running Time is approximately 70 minutes with NO intermission. Seating is general admission.
Late seating and re-entry cannot be permitted due to the layout of the theatre.


  • Edgar Oliver - photo by Pavel Antonov
  • Paul Carbonara, Yonatan Gutfeld, Edgar Oliver, Sam Quiggins - photo by Pavel Antonov
  • Edgar Oliver - photo by Pavel Antonov
  • Edgar Oliver - photo by Pavel Antonov
  • Paul Carbonara, Yonatan Gutfeld, Sam Quiggins, Edgar Oliver - photo by Pavel Antonov
  • Yonatan Gutfeld, Edgar Oliver, Paul Carbonara, Sam Quiggins - photo by Pavel Antonov




“This play is a poem that evokes the eerie, yet magical, feeling one gets in the rare moment of being completely alone in New York City. It feels like stepping into a slightly different reality.”
—THE REVIEWS HUB
“Love Among the Shadows in Edgar Oliver's 'Victor' In this haunting memoir of his relationship with a homeless man, Mr. Oliver confirms his status as a poet laureate of New York's dispossessed. ”
—Ben Brantley (Critic's Pick)
The New York Times
“...Oliver's stage persona is captivatingly paradoxical: he lets the audience into the deepest parts of his memories and self-reflections, while at the same time insisting on his own shyness... I could listen to Edgar Oliver tell stories for hours, and thanks to his status on the downtown stage, I can. This particular story, far from being exploitative, introduced me to the work of another great artist: the poet and illustrator Victor Greco.”
—THE THEATRE TIMES
“"Those were happy days," Edgar Oliver intones in his unplaceable lilt, somehow both animated and deadpan, as his hand drifts downward like a falling leaf. "Why do we survive them?" Like a dying breed of downtown New Yorker crossed with an extraterrestrial ghost, Oliver has rematerialized to deliver his latest fond, funny, strange, elegiac memoir-monologue about "the sorrows of men who live alone in rooming houses," this time about his beloved friend and neighbor Victor Greco, who died in February and who was homeless for the last ten years of his life. Sensitively directed by Randy Sharp, with a suitably sepulchral set (by Chad Yarborough) and lighting (by David Zeffren) and live music by a guitar-cello-piano trio led by Paul Carbonara, the show gives the impression that the shy loner onstage has had a far richer social life than most of us will ever have.”
—Rollo Romig
The New Yorker
“How Do You Translate Desire and Longing Into Theatre? By ELIZA BENT”
—TDF Stages
“...a haunting love story memoir that will stay with you days after the performance...seldom are we allowed access to such a raw story and candidness...”
—TheaterScene
“A gorgeously haunting ghost story...there is a relaxed, mysterious and lyrical easiness to this performance which is beautifully realized in the always atmospheric environs in Axis' Greenwich Village space...a wonderful theatrical experience no matter which interpretation captures your fancy.”
—TheatreReviewFromMySeat
WATCH VICTOR Promotional Video 1
WATCH VICTOR Promotional Video 2
WATCH VICTOR Promotional Video 3
WATCH VICTOR Promotional Video 4
WATCH VICTOR Promotional Video 5