Have you ever poured your heart out to an advice columnist? Even if your letter wasn’t printed, you probably felt better after spilling your guts to Abby or Ann Landers.
Have you ever thought about who reads and answers those letters?
“Tiny Beautiful Things,” a memoir of sorts, chronicles author Cheryl Strayed’s time as an advice columnist under the pseudonym “Sugar.” Adapted for the stage by Nia Vardalos and directed by Open Stage’s Stuart Landon, the play is a heavy, thoughtful exploration of the human experience, of real problems needing fixes and someone to listen.
We meet struggling writer “Sugar” (not her real name) in her cozy apartment, puttering around the house and writing a few lines here and there, the way writers do when they’re supposed to be writing butt-in-seat style. She accepts the offer to take over the “Dear Sugar” column from a fellow writer for no pay, likely as a way to further procrastinate the novel she’s supposed to be writing.
Then the “Dear Sugar” letters flood her inbox. The problems they hold feel relatable… Letter writers in love… Letter writers falling out of love… Letter writers feeling lonely. Even if you haven’t found yourself in similar predicaments, the scenarios will sound familiar to you. And you’ll hear a few whack-a-doo problems thrown in for comic relief.
At first, Sugar struggles to give good advice. But then she grows into the maven role. In her answers, Sugar shares anecdotes from her own country song of a life. She writes from an obliterated place inside herself, with a fully processed wisdom that arises from scars left by cavernous pain. Much of the dialogue is poetry, with the poet deliberately choosing each perfect word.
It doesn’t take long for readers to pick up on Sugar’s changed voice. They want to know her, to see a picture of her, to know her real name. Readers can also be unforgiving, pointing out inconsistencies with advice she offers. They question whether she is qualified to give advice.
Sugar recognizes contradictions in her advice exist—the cognitive dissonance of two opposing things being simultaneously true. She encourages readers to comfortably linger in the gray, non-binary spaces. Her most troubling dichotomy is this: although the letter writers seem to energize Sugar, all the brave sharing unearths a lot of her own trauma.
In playing the lead role of Sugar, Karen Ruch’s stage presence is a motherly warmth, her soothing voice compassionate for everyone she writes about. Her carefully chosen and delivered words hold everyone with unconditional positive regard, reassuring the audience that her readers will eventually rise above their askew circumstances.
Even through the death of a child. My heart broke listening to Letter Writer #1 (Chris Gibson) ask for advice about losing his 22-year-old son. Gibson lays his grief bare, with his trembling voice and defeated body language. All I had in my pocket was a crumpled napkin from the lobby bar. From that scene alone, I folded it over about 16 times and transferred to it all the mascara that used to be clumped on my lashes.
In contrast, in coping with the loss of her baby, Letter Writer #2 (Jasmine Graham) interprets her character as an emotionless shell, depression turned inward. Graham’s forlorn face and the depth of her pain made me want to sit next to her onstage, to hold her hand and drag her to a therapist’s office, to help make her care about something again.
Along the lines of loss, another gut punch came from Letter Writer #3 (Joellen Terranova), writing to Sugar about transitioning genders and parental rejection. Terranova brings to their performance a mature acceptance of emotionally unavailable parents who let them down when their children needed them most. Terranova’s vulnerability reminded me of a broken vase whose lines you can still see.
Sugar reveals new ways to look at readers’ problems. We aren’t always able to change our circumstances, and we definitely can’t rewrite history. So the way forward is to reach and transcend. Then we can intentionally choose who influences us.
This show feels like therapy, or a support group minus the bad coffee. If you go, remember your tissues, find a sitter for your littles, and skip the mascara for one night. You’re in for public displays of emotion and a cathartic communal cry.
“Tiny Beautiful Things” runs April 21 through May 7 at Open Stage, 25 N. Court St., Harrisburg. For more information and tickets, visit https://www.openstagehbg.com/show/tiny-beautiful-things.
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