TINY BEAUTIFUL THINGS


Dear Abby and Ann Landers could learn a thing or two from Sugar, the advice columnist whose empathetic, profound, deeply moving responses to folks in dire need of counsel make Chance Theater’s Orange County Premiere of Tiny Beautiful Things the most heartstrings-tugging show in town.

Nia Vardalos’s stage adaptation of Cheryl Strayed’s best-selling Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar introduces us to Strayed a few years before her hugely successful memoir Wild recounted her cathartic thousand-mile hike up the Pacific Crest Trail, a trek filmgoers will recall from the Oscar-nominated Reese Witherspoon starrer of the same name.

It’s certainly not money that prompts Cheryl (Aubrey Saverino) to accept a non-paying gig as anonymous online advice giver “Sugar,” but as her responses soon prove, the friend who offered her the pro bono assignment could not have made a better choice than the married mother of two.

Drawing from her own history of heroin addiction, incestuous abuse, and her mom’s cancer death, Cheryl soon finds herself providing empathy and hope to a series of letter writers inhabited on Chance Theater stage by Jonathon Lamer, Jennifer Richardson, and Sam Mistry in dozens of age, gender, and race-defying roles.

Letters range from the humorous (one writer can’t decide which of his three girlfriends to settle on and another wonders if the thousand-dollar tips she’s been pocketing from trysts with a married man need to be reported to the IRS) to the devastating (a miscarriage survivor finds herself incapable of overcoming the loss of her unborn child, a transgender man must deal with parental rejection), and having been through it all and survived, “Sugar” is able to respond with heartfelt empathy rather than a pat set of answers.

Director Katie Chidester keeps Strayed’s letter writers on stage in her suburban home throughout the play’s 80-minute running time, whether reclining on the sofa, plopped on a chair, or helping themselves to a drink or snack from her well-stocked kitchen, thereby allowing the trio to become not just advice-seekers but observer/listeners as well.

And though Tiny Beautiful Things could easily captivate an audience with four actors simply reading Dear Sugar emails and Sugar’s remarkably insightful responses, Chidester’s approach (performed on scenic designer Kristin Campbell Coyne’s gorgeous-to-look-at, authentically lived-in living room/kitchen set) transcends the script’s Q&A format to become something as theatrical as it is transformative.

Leading lady Saverino follows her Scenie-winning lead performance in Chance Theater’s Cry It Out with the most radiant of star turns, investing Sugar with so much compassion, wisdom, and depth that the cumulative effect of all three is downright stunning.

Longtime Chance favorites Lamer and Richardson and charismatic young newcomer Mistry create one indelible character after another, Richardson digging especially deep into the trauma of a woman unable to “bounce back” after a miscarriage and Mistry revealing first comedic, then dramatic chops as a love-‘em-and-leave-‘em lothario and a trans man rejected by parents whose love was conditional at best.

Most moving of all is the numbered list (in lieu of a letter that would have been too painful to write) enumerated by an extraordinarily powerful Lamer as a Living Dead Dad, and the list (in lieu of a letter that might have been impossible to write) that Sugar (Saverino at her most unforgettable) composes in response.

Gwen Sloan’s costumes allow Tiny Beautiful Things’ multitude of letter writers to make minor adjustments to match each character’s idiosyncrasies, Darryl B. Hovis’s sound design ups the production’s emotional impact from start to finish, and Jordan “LJ” Curiel’s striking lighting design features a back-lit moment that left me breathless.

Bebe Herrera is stage manager. Jocelyn L. Buckner is dramaturg. Teddy Pagee is assistant scenic designer.

I fell in love with Tiny Beautiful Things five years ago at the Pasadena Playhouse and its Orange County Premiere has me once again smitten, and perhaps even more so in this more intimate staging. Live theater doesn’t get more compelling or inspirational than this.

Chance Theater, 5522 E. La Palma Ave., Anaheim Hills.
www.chancetheater.com

–Steven Stanley
April 13, 2024
Photos: Francis Gacad

Tags: , , ,

Comments are closed.