Our group saw You Got Older at Steppenwolf the day after we saw Breach at Victory Gardens, and it made for an interesting set of comparisons - a long-standing tradition of season tickets vs the spontaneity of a random last-minute deal, the huge establishment of Steppenwolf vs the quirkiness of Victory Gardens, the wistfully mature and sad themes of You Got Older vs the humor and energy of Breach.
Gosh. Â This is why I love theater. Â It's all of life, broken down, approached from different angles, all somehow rolled together and complementing rather than competing. Â You can't beat that.
You Got Older was indeed wistful and thoughtful and sad......and real. Â The plot followed a not-quite-middle-aged woman's return home to sort through a life almost half gone and at least half broken - her mother deceased, her father in decline, her career fallen apart, her relationships frayed, her teenage crush a huge disappointment. Â
Yep.......that's middle age on the horizon. Â As my mother has often said, it is not for wimps.
The power of You Got Older was not in the plot itself, but in the world and mood it created that left you completely enmeshed in the main character's experience (and held you there reflecting back on it days later). Â Its pacing was slow - sometimes painfully - yet illuminated how it really feels to visit aging parents. Â Their lives have often narrowed and become focused on home and what feel like tediously mundane matters - doctor's appointments, side effects of prescription medications, grocery lists, the condition of the lawn, never-ending news programs, and TV Guide. Â It's a natural and benign process, yet it can provoke even the most patient adult child into tantrums of frustration.
You Got Older reminded me why. Â As children, especially those of us who are first-born, we race to grow up and join that elite stratum of grown-ups who anchor our world. Â When we finally get there, though, they have also moved on and somehow left us behind again. It feels like betrayal when we realize we will never catch up to them. And I'm pretty sure the tantrums come because we can never quite forgive them for that.
