'You Got Older' Off-Broadway review — a moving portrait of adulthood and caregiving
Read our review of You Got Older off Broadway, a revival of Clare Barron’s 2014 play starring Alia Shawkat and Peter Friedman at the Cherry Lane Theatre.
Summary
- You Got Older follows a newly jobless and single woman who moves home to care for her sick father and seeks intimacy and connection
- The show movingly explores the intersection of grief and love
- The show is recommended for fans of A24 films and the TV work of stars Alia Shawkat (Arrested Development) and Peter Friedman (Succession)
Grief and love are two sides of the same coin. In You Got Older, playwright Clare Barron brings familial responsibility, millennial angst, and the pressures of adulthood into a sharp, darkly comic collision, making this revival of her 2014 work one of the season’s standout plays.
Mae (Arrested Development's Alia Shawkat) returns to her hometown in Washington to care for her father (Tony Award nominee Peter Friedman). Barron has a gift for portraying intimacy in both expansive and small ways. In one quietly moving scene, Mae and her father talk about the green peppers he is growing, the soft-bristled toothbrush she needs from the pharmacy, and plans to build a fire. In the ordinary exchange, you can feel their deep bond.
Then, in the next scene, the emotional register shifts abruptly. At a dive bar, Mae unloads her situation onto an old elementary school classmate: Her father has a rare and aggressive cancer, she and her boyfriend just broke up, and her boyfriend was her boss, so now she has no job. With this relative stranger, an unsettling intimacy takes hold, and by the end of their conversation, he’s applying ointment to a rash on her back, and she’s asking for sex.
Escapism becomes another form of closeness. A husky cowboy (Paul Cooper) appears in Mae’s dreams and then begins to appear in her waking hours when she needs to escape reality. The play's back-and-forth between reality and surrealism, quiet and loud, big and small effectively shows how anticipatory grief moves. Director Anne Kauffman expertly moves the play along these fractured lines, allowing the shifts to gently collide.
One of the strongest scenes unfolds in a hospital, where Mae and her three siblings hilariously banter about their family's specific smell, penises, and avocado pits. The overlapping dialogue places the audience like flies on the wall, listening as the siblings talk over one another, while their father rests center stage. Jenny, the youngest, played by Nina White, brings baseball caps for everyone, so if they cry, they can pull the bill over their faces.
By the end of the play, this critic could’ve used a baseball cap. You Got Older remains a timeless meditation on adulthood in all its messiness, pain, and sometimes humor — and it is well worth seeing.
You Got Older summary
Mae returns to her childhood home after a breakup and losing her job to help care for her father as he undergoes cancer treatment. Feeling unmoored, she finds herself between the stark realities of illness and caregiving and moments of surreal escape, including fantasies involving a mysterious cowboy.
You Got Older premiered in 2014 at HERE Arts Center, presented by Page 73 and also directed by Anne Kauffman. The production won the 2015 Obie Awards for Playwriting and Performance.
What to expect at You Got Older
You Got Older runs 1 hour and 45 minutes with no intermission. The Cherry Lane Theatre is an intimate, 169-seat theatre with a small lobby and just three bathroom stalls, so plan accordingly.
The small venue proves an ideal match for this work. Its close quarters give audiences an up-close view of the performances, which are detailed and deeply human. The play’s blend of naturalism and surrealism is reminiscent of films associated with A24, the film studio that owns the playhouse. This tonal match is reinforced by Shawkat and Friedman, both screen veterans whose subtle, reactive acting shines in close proximity.
What audiences are saying about You Got Older
In early performances, You Got Older was praised by theatregoers on Mezzanine, an app for tracking and rating shows, and on Reddit.
- “A really tender and offbeat piece about how we deal with death and deterioration creeping in on us day by day, and how we find moments of diversion and joy in the process.” - Mezzanine user Derek Kahle
- “Poignant coming-of-age family dramedy with enough weirdness to keep it downtown. Is ‘Timber’ the new ‘Greenlight’?” - Mezzanine user Jennifer JB
- “I enjoyed it a lot. The family dynamics and conversations felt very real to me, and Peter Friedman is just incredible.” - Reddit user u/RapGamePterodactyl
- “Thought the production was well done and very funny. I really liked the play itself… was unfamiliar with the work, but it really resonated with me.” - Reddit user u/Glasbre
Who should see You Got Older
- Theatregoers who enjoy Clare Barron’s works, which blend raw emotion and absurdist humor, will like You Got Older. Her plays also include Dance Nation, a finalist for the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
- Fans of Alia Shawkat, best known for her long-running stint on Arrested Development, will enjoy seeing her take the stage. You Got Older marks her return to the theatre; in 2019, she appeared in Second Woman, a 24-hour endurance performance art piece at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.
- Succession fans will delight in seeing Peter Friedman on stage. Most recently, Friedman appeared on and off Broadway in the workplace thriller Job.
- Those drawn to the aesthetic of A24 films will appreciate a stage work that shares a similar tonal palette. You Got Older offers naturalistic performances punctuated by moments of surrealism, discomfort, and dark comedy.
Learn more about You Got Older off Broadway
Clare Barron’s You Got Older is a darkly comic exploration of intimacy in all its forms and a reminder that growing up means learning to hold grief and love at the same time.
Photo credit: You Got Older off Broadway. (Photos by Marc J. Franklin)
Originally published on