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April 19, 2015

The writer and performer Matthew Zajac has a ghost story for you. And an adventure story and a detective story. It’s all the same story, which is apparently a true story and conveniently his own story — well, his and that of his father, Mateusz Zajac, who eventually settled in Inverness, Scotland, supporting his family with his sewing machine. What happens before that and also long after, as Matthew returns to Poland to spool back the lost threads of his father’s life, are the subjects of his impassioned but unfocused solo show, “The Tailor of Inverness,” the first entry in this season’s Brits Off Broadway festival. The younger Mr. Zajac stands on a mostly bare set in a tiny theater at 59E59. He has a thin face and a thin body, his hair recedes in a widow’s peak and square-framed glasses sit on his slightly hawklike nose. When he wears those glasses and speaks in an accent that’s part Eastern European and part Scottish, he’s playing his father. When he takes them off and adopts quieter, more English tones, he’s playing himself. There’s also a violinist, Aidan O’Rourke, always onstage, who supplies sound effects and accompanies Mr. Zajac when he sings Polish folk songs.

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