Richard Tyrone Jones survived heart failure in 2010. Good thing, because he’s a likable guy with a decent show. The best element in Big Heart is Jones’s use of interactive animated projections (by Pattern Fight), which place him in the midst of life-saving machinery—imagined, apparently, by a cousin of Edward Gorey—and reveal his colourful insides. The negative is that, for all of Jones’s charismatic exuberance—he offers beer to the audience—the writer/performer keeps his story impersonal. Emotions never find homes in relationships, and, because Jones would rather tell rowdy-boy sex jokes than seriously consider his internal life, Big Heart lacks depth. The author tries to create narrative tension about the possibility that he has passed a genetic curse to his sperm-donor offspring, but they’re not developed characters, so who cares about them? Still, the guy’s a charmer.

At Studio 1398 on September 6 (8:30 p.m.), 7 (10:15 p.m.), 8 (2:35 p.m.), 11 (9:45 p.m.), 13 (5 p.m.), and 14 (4:40 p.m.).