Ben
Brantley

January 13, 2016

Imagine if whenever anyone asked you to say a little something about yourself, you had your very own orchestra to back you up. That’s the privileged position in which Ahamefule J. Oluo finds himself in “Now I’m Fine,” the engaging musical memoir that opened on Tuesday night at the Public Theater as part of the Under the Radar festival. Exercises in stand-up autobiography are epidemic in experimental theater. But Mr. Oluo, a Seattle-based polymath of the performing arts (writer, composer, comedian, trumpeter, pianist, etc.), manages to expand the format to dizzying proportions, with a little help from friends who include more than a dozen talented musicians and a glamorous vocalist (the bearded, gown-wearing okanomodé). The standard, modest, one-man confessional here becomes a grand hybrid.