This wonderful piece brims with wisdom. There are deeply moving exhortations to forgiveness, acceptance, love and personal empowerment. (I’m uncomfortable with the last member of that list; I’ll get back to it.)
Tiny Beautiful Things is an adaption by Nia Vardalos of a book by Cheryl Strayed. Strayed wrote an advice column, anonymously fielding questions from those who anonymously asked them.
The piece attempts no standard narrative. It simply consists of three actors (Stephen Geronimos, Nic Prior and Angela Nica Sullen) presenting the letters sent to the column and Strayed (Mandy McElhinney) giving her answers. She does this as she tidies her house late at night.
This tidying of the house is a beautiful touch; having problems and seeking solutions is not some sort of aberration – it’s the very stuff of everyday Life. There’s no need to go to the mountain top for enlightenment. Tiny beautiful things are all around us. As the Zen koan says: Before enlightenment, chop wood and carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood and carry water.
Director Lee Lewis elicits magnificent performances from the cast. Playing multiple characters, Geronimos, Prior and Nica Sullen capture brilliantly the bewilderment of uncertainty, the agony of its opposite, and the delight of being heard. McElhinney plays Strayed with an absolutely charming combination of good sense and humour, vulnerability and strength.
As her pseudonym, Sugar, Strayed fields questions about friendship, marriage, sex, grief…. anything and everything, and answers them with heartwarming anecdotes and electrifying figurative language. She claims no expertise, except what she’s learnt from her own mistakes and from the love of her mother.
Here’s an abbreviated example of the sort of thing we get (but I emphasise, this one I made up myself):
Dear Sugar, I’ve been happily married to a wonderful man for ten years but now etc …. Signed Confused.
Dear Confused, It’s no wonder you’re confused. It’s easy for us to imagine that things will stay as they have been, especially when they’ve been so good. When I was first married etc… Signed Sugar.
This question/answer structure may not seem like the material of theatre, but I was utterly mesmerised for the entire 95 minutes.
And, of course, despite its oddness, its uniqueness, Tiny Beautiful Things does what all good theatre does. Theatre artists always present a vision of Life, and we as the audience are in the business of deciding if that vision can help us in some way. Perhaps the show is simply good fun, and so it reminds us we can let go of the worries of the day. Perhaps the show represents an aspect of our experience we feel has been previously unacknowledged, and so it reminds us we’re not alone. Perhaps the show models behaviour to which we aspire, and so we leave the theatre determined to be more kind or more courageous. Regardless of the vision of Life offered, we respond to it as a type of advice.
Let me come back to personal empowerment, that term I stumbled over initially. Strayed never uses the term. (Perhaps, like me, she feels it has an unpleasant odour, something suggestive of real estate agents beating their chests as they gee themselves up for the next big sale.) But both Strayed and the play explore something important here.
It’s worth noting that Tiny Beautiful Things never shows us whether the advice Strayed offers is any good. She’s clearly loved by her readers, but we don’t know if any individual who asks for advice ever acts on it, or if they do, whether it makes any positive impact on their lives. It’s we, the audience, who must judge if what Strayed says is of any value.
It’s a funny phenomenon, advice. In Australia, it’s unfashionable. These days, if we’re bothered at all, we’re more likely to tell someone exactly what they should do, rather than offer them a suggestion. But this show, this beautiful thing, reminds us that it’s always a suggestion, that it’s you as an individual who always has agency. It is you who chooses to ask for advice, you who chooses to see its value, you who chooses to act on it, or not. You. And that’s a good thing.
Asking for advice is not a relinquishing of responsibility, and giving advice is not a form of coercion. The giving and taking of advice is an acceptance that all of us are neck deep in this mysterious muddle called Life.
This show is a gloriously humane reminder, that faced with Life’s challenges, no one has the answers, but we do have each other. And one thing we do for each other – in conversation, in theatre – is make real the magic of choice.
Paul Gilchrist
Tiny Beautiful Things by Nia Vardalos (adapted from a book by Cheryl Strayed, co-conceived by Marshall Heyman, Thomas Kail and Nia Vardalos)
At Belvoir until 2 March
Image by Brett Boardman
Theatre Red 