Tiny Beautiful Things Is Emotional Opening for BETC’s 14th season

For several years, Cheryl Strayed (author of several books including the autobiographical Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail) wrote a popular online advice column, under the pseudonym Sugar.

Because it was online, there was plenty of room for her letter-writers to vent about their own particular problem, and plenty of room for “Sugar” to answer them. The internet was a lot freer than print media – people could ask about their concerns about their sexual identity, about domestic  abuse, about hating themselves, about suicidal thoughts. Cry after cry after cry for help.

Thanks to Strayed’s own personal history (which she references in most of her books) she was uniquely qualified to give advice, or as she explained it to a querulous letter writer:

“I will be open with you. I will be bare. I will show you my brokenness and my strengths and I will do my best to offer my best, tough, sweet and even occasionally contradictory advice. I don’t know if my unorthodox approach is wrong or right.  Advice columnists are supposed to position themselves as The Ones Who Know but I’m not that person; I am The One who Doesn’t Know But Who Will Work Really Really Hard to See What I Can Find.”

Later, she published selected letters and her responses to them in book form, and this book was adapted for the stage in 2017.

The Boulder Ensemble Theatre Company (BETC) opens its 14th season with the Colorado premiere of the theatrical version of Tiny Beautiful Things. This thought-provoking show runs Thursdays through Sundays until October 12, 2019. Purchase tickets at their site.

The setting is the interior of “Sugar’s” home – living room, kitchen, a flight of stairs, and in the background long white streamers of fabric mountains (which, if you’re like this reviewer, may also be interpreted as the pointy tops of houses signifying that while all the letter writers are in the same room, they are actually communicating with Sugar from their own homes stretched across the country).

Over the course of a single evening, Sugar goes on a journey of remembrance, of the day she first accepted the (unpaid) job as an advice columnist; of some of the funny letters she received (“I am a 35-yar old woman, I lost my job and am entering into an arrangement with a married man: we will rendezvous twice a week and he will pay me $1,000 a month. I have many thoughts and questions, including: is this taxable income?) of the easy letters – should the Writer have or not have an affair? -, and of the most heart-breaking.

BETC’s production presents a talented and versatile ensemble cast of Josh Hartwell, Rodney Lizcano and Simone St. John, with Diana Dresser as Sugar, directed crisply by Rebecca Remaly.

Hartwell, Lizcano and St. John each portray a variety of Letter Writers – their body language conveying whether they are male or female and how they feel about themselves.

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At other times they tell their story fully, and Sugar responds with empathy as the two interact, everything from a woman who has lost her baby to a miscarriage and can’t get past it (“Stuck”) to a transgender who wants to know if he should reconcile with his parents (“Orphan”) to a man who wants to know if he should indulge his girlfriend’s sexual fantasy regarding Santa Claus (Sexy Santa).

Sugar takes us on an emotional journey of her own, as well. We learn of her own sexual abuse from her grandfather, the early death of her mother, her abuse of drugs – stories that Diana Dresser tells in the most moving and affecting way possible.

Dresser’s also impacted by the letters from her correspondents – making emotional (and even at times physical) contact with them as she shares her own related story in an attempt to illuminate theirs.

Tiny Beautiful Things is presented without intermission – enabling the audience to stay invested in the story from beginning to end.

There’s lots of humor, there’s lots of tears, but in the end there’s lots of hope as well, for Sugar brings one thing home to us all – no matter how lost someone thinks they are – they have the right to tiny, beautiful things in their lives.

If you go

The Dairy Arts Center is located at 2590 Walnut Street in Boulder, Colorado. It’s actually a renovated dairy and features a movie theatre, art gallery, and stages that are home to a variety of theatrical troupes including the BETC.

The Dairy has its own parking lot, and there is some street parking. There are a few restaurants within walking distance, including Goodtimes (a burger place, drive thru only).

If you’re coming up from Denver or south from Cheyenne or Fort Collins, take exit 240 from I-25, drive 19 miles along CO-119 until you get to Foothills Pkway, which you’ll follow to Pearl Street, then Pearl Parkway, and onward to 26th street. Turn right on Walnut and you’re there.