Rainy Days

My Beginners experience begins, as most theatre experiences do, with finding my seat.

Let me start with this.  I have worked a collective ten years in front of house.  I can find any seat in any theatre.  This is a completely useless skill, and I pride myself very much on it.  So imagine my surprise (and shame) when I couldn’t find our damn seats.  I had gotten an email with my seats, but had received a second email with a seat change.  It was all rather strange.  Finally, to my embarrassment, I admitted we needed help.  But I asked my mom to ask, because I was completely ashamed.  The volunteer usher had no idea where the seats were either.  The woman who was an actual employee of the theatre did.  She gave us a sly smile and lead us to the side of the stage, where four chairs were set up.  Onstage seating!  I hadn’t done that since I saw Spring Awakening about fifteen years ago.  Damn.

The stage was pretty simple, but very nice.  Just four beds with mismatched quilts.  It looked like a basic room in a basic building, which is basically what we knew was coming.  We had a great view of the whole thing.  It was pretty cool.  When I was really taking in a lot of it, I was super intrigued.  The stage was level, and the front row of seats were right in front.  There was also a trough at the base of the stage.

There’s a lot to say about Beginners.  But there’s also a lot I can’t say.  I need to be really careful about this write up, because I don’t want to give away any spoilers (because I’m definitely encouraging everyone reading this to go see the show).  Honestly, I think the beginning is a lot that’s up for interpretation.  The way I was perceiving what we were watching was different from what my mom was perceiving.  And that’s okay…it’s actually a lot of fun.  Because as we continued to see things unfold, we understood more and more of what was going on.

But I’ll talk about some things that I can talk about.  Like one of my favorite parts…each adult actor had a child actor who was playing a younger them.  The kids were dressed similarly to the adults.  It was a lovely parallel, and those child actors were fantastic.  They really mirrored their adult partner well.  I’ve been onstage at that age, and it’s not easy.  I was super impressed.  The way the kids interacted with each other, and subtly with their adult partner was absolutely fantastic.  It brought things to a whole other level.

They did some things that were pretty big for a small stage, such as actual water showing the rain.  That was what the trough was there for…to catch the water.  I was pretty floored by that one, it was super cool.  There was a lot of fun stuff with props, and the way certain things were used.  I loved the dialogue, and how things I wasn’t expecting to happen happened.  There were twists and turns, and as we got more and more, I wasn’t even sure how this show was going to wrap up in its short 100 minutes.

This was the US premiere of Beginners, which is super cool.  I absolutely love premiers.  There’s something really special about them…whether it’s local, US, or world premiers.  Knowing that you’re getting to experience something in a setting where no one else has is amazing.  You’re sharing something with a theatre full of other people experiencing the same thing.  I’m so glad we got this show.  Tim Crouch’s writing is incredible.  I love how he moved the story along, how he dropped little clues about various things from the start to the end.  I wouldn’t have expected most of it.  It takes a truly gifted writer to wind the story of Beginners the way Crouch did.

There is seriously so much to enjoy about Beginners.  We see multi generational characters and the things that affect them.  We see kids trapped in a cottage while their parents are at the bar.  We see the way kids and adults hate each other, but also love each other.  There was so much to this play, and even though I saw it a week ago, I’m still digesting a bit.  The way these relationships played onstage were phenomenal.  And let me tell you, relationships can definitely be hard.  But the cast did an amazing job with these complicated relationships.  It was fantastic.

I need to give a serious nod to Marcie Bramucci, who completely excelled at wearing yet another hat.  As a director, I feel like she really pulled this whole play together.  I can’t imagine that was an easy task, but she completely killed it (that’s a good thing!)  I loved what she did with this show, so I absolutely want to applaud her on that one.

Honestly, I would love to see Beginners again.  Maybe from the proper vantage point (it’s fun sitting on the stage, but you do miss some things).  I’m sure, going in knowing what I know now, it would be a very fascinating experience.  I probably won’t be getting back, but I still love everything I saw on that stage.  It was raggedy and patchy, just like the characters and their relationship.  It was completely fitting of everything, and that feeling will just hang around.  It’s completely perfect and completely worth it.