Theater Review: Tiny Beautiful Things

 

I’ve often wondered how advice columnists do it. I mean, what gives them the chutzpah to think they know enough to tell someone else what to do?

In 2012, author/podcaster Cheryl Strayed made a book out of a collection of advice columns she had previously posted on “The Rumpus,” an online literary magazine. This book is now said to be as much literary memoir as advice and help.

The book, published in 2012 by a division of Random House, debuted at No. 5 on the New York Times Best Seller list in the advice and self-help category. “Variety” called it “a theatrical hug in turbulent times.”

Last night at Scripps Ranch Theatre, a woman who calls herself “Dear Sugar” gave advice on “love and life” onstage. The show runs through December 8, and is 90 minutes long with no intermission.

You’ve probably never seen anything like this onstage before, using four actors: “Dear Sugar” (Jyl Kaneshiro), the advice-giver, and three others identified in the program as “Letter Writers” one, two and three. These three are played by Max Macke, Michelle Marie Trester and Lisette Velandia. They act and react on a living room/kitchen set, which is in itself homey.

The point of Dear Sugar is to have someone to listen to your problems, from having a crush on someone to being rejected by parents, suffering a miscarriage, sexual assault and the most affecting, a man who has lost his child to death. Sugar always has something comforting to say, whether or not she has a great idea how to “fix” a problem. Sugar says she’s not the “know-it-all” kind of advice-giver, but that she is willing to work “really, really hard to see what I can find” in the way of solutions.

Warmth and humor abound here, and despite the problems under discussion, everyone is heard and helped by Sugar.

Congratulations all around also to the cast and designers: set design (Dixon Fish) and construction (John Owen), sound (Carla Nell) and stage design and costume designs (Cassandra Crawford). 

After all, as author Cheryl Strayed puts it, “You don’t have a right to the cards you believe you should have been dealt. You have an obligation to play the hell out of the ones you’re holding.”

This is a most unusual show. My advice is to grab yourself a ticket and go see it.