Tiny Beautiful Things

"A handkerchief-soaking meditation on pain, loss, hope and forgiveness…'Tiny Beautiful Things’ turns out to provide an ideal catharsis for those suffering from the various deep-dyed blues…This production is not a successful narrative play in any conventional sense. But it works beautifully as a sustained theatrical exercise in empathy…The cast members endow their characters with distinguishing individuality and, more important, a connective emotional transparency." Full Review

"An emotional (and slightly sappy) new play that compellingly theatricalizes the act of giving and receiving advice…Unfortunately, as performed by Vardalos, this radical sincerity often comes across as completely false…Vardalos' costars are more successful…While Sugar's sweeter moments are likely to send some viewers into a diabetic coma, 'Tiny Beautiful Things' captures its subject succinctly and effectively." Full Review

"Warm, funny and endearing...There's no plot to the 80-minute piece and very little drama in the traditional sense...With no dramatic through-line, Vardalos and Kail establish rhythms and tension by balancing the funny with the emotional, the quick Q&As with the lengthy confessionals...As Sugar, Vardalos is continually touched, amused and amazed by her readers...hoping that they'll always see themselves as deserving of life's tiny beautiful things." Full Review

"A lackluster theatrical piece...Director Kail provides little theatricality to the static proceedings...Vardalos, looking suitably unglamorous, is appealing as always. But she can’t breathe life into her inherently passive, responsive role...By the time the seemingly interminable proceedings reach their conclusion, you’ll be mentally dictating your own letter to Sugar, asking how to erase the memory of monotonous evenings in the theater like this one." Full Review

"Watching the awkwardly constructed but incredibly moving 'Tiny Beautiful Things', I realized my powers of analysis were being drowned out...My brain kept protesting that these multiple 'translations' (Internet to book, book to stage) weren't working: Vardalos is rather too cool; Strayed's language is better on the screen/page; the show's convention of having letter writers ask questions...can be annoying. But Strayed's advice knocks you down with its avalanche of kindness." Full Review

"Some may find the show little more than a multi-character, well-written Ted Talk, and its rhythms and anecdotes too predictable...But Kail creates a graceful, fluid, low-key dynamic that has those letter-writers inhabiting Sugar’s everyday world. The stories they tell, the anguish they feel and the questions they ask are quiet cries for help, and Sugar is there for them because she is one of them...In this shared experience, love and forgiveness is all — and sometimes, just that is enough." Full Review

"‘If this were drama, the SAT would be Chekhov. But then drama, at least the traditional kind, does not seem to be what anyone was after…Lacking intrinsic momentum, the show’s 90 minutes can’t help but unreel a bit stuporously, despite Kail’s typically careful balancing of tempo and tone. That the show nevertheless keeps your interest is mostly a tribute to the acting…If this is a classic ‘why?’ endeavor it still has plenty of powerful moments in which you are persuaded ‘why not?’" Full Review

"Unbearably moving…’Tiny Beautiful Things’ inspires such strong emotional reactions that the awkward set-up winds up not mattering much…What’s most startling and rewarding about her stories is not just that they are told well, but that they are applied to advice-seeker’s dilemmas to which they don’t on the surface seem relevant…Is it too schmaltzy to call this play a tiny beautiful thing?" Full Review

"An advice column doesn't really a play make...Strayed can turn an elegant phrase...But there's no drama here, no development, no increasing complexity or deepening of feeling. It's just a series of questions and answers, and even the deep empathy of the latter after a while becomes a little bit dull. Vardalos, who has a natural stage presence and the skill to make a pause in the conversation vibrate with unspoken thoughts, goes a long way toward holding our interest." Full Review

"A well-meant but messy and unnecessary stage dramatization…Vardalos, Kail and Marshall Heyman made an unusual and creative attempt to inject a series of essays with a dramatic spine, giving the actors a big set to play around with and having Vardalos convey the author’s own emotional journey over time through subtle acting choices. However, the question-and-answer cycle quickly becomes repetitive and makes for a long and strained 80 minutes." Full Review

"The questions are gorgeously intoned by Brannon, Narciso, and Woolams-Torres…But intoning those questions is, essentially, all they do. To the extent drama occurs along the way, it's found in the gradual peeling away of the layers of artifice Sugar builds up around herself to defend against the dangers of Internet anonymity…Is that journey enough to power a full evening, even one this comparatively short? For me, no." Full Review

"The play, adapted by and starring Nia Vardalos, upends expectations. It’s provocative, poignant and rich — and at 75 minutes reminds that very good things come in ‘Tiny’ packages…Vardalos, who plays Sugar, plus Phillip James Brannon, Alfredo Narciso and Natalie Woolams-Torres, breathe life into various advice seekers, give fine, feel-real performances. Director Thomas Kail sets the action in a lived-in home that might be or have been yours, mine, anyone’s. That’s the point." Full Review

"These three actors are so good they bring these epistolary exchanges closer to creating the real human connection for which the internet will never be a substitute. Vardalos not only steps into Ms. Strayed's shoes with grace and feeling but has done a good job of trimming, adding and reorganizing some of the material. The book's most heart-wrenching segment rounds out the piece with a get-out-your-handkerchief moment...Handsomely staged and warmly performed." Full Review

"This group of gifted actors portraying all sorts of characters reaching out for advice from ‘Sugar,’ pulls us skillfully and honestly into their stories and predicaments. It’s almost shocking how we can be so thoroughly engaged so quickly into these personal pleas for help and guidance…It feels utterly genuine and sometimes profound. It’s a beautiful piece of work Vardalos has created, not tiny at all, although as a ‘play,' I struggled with the forward drive and momentum." Full Review

"Vardalos has an unaffected, straightforward steadiness and a compassionate face to match someone who presumes to answer pleas for help...Perhaps to distract from the 80-minute play’s static, monotonous, confessional quality, the letter writers wander the place looking at knickknacks...Meanwhile, Sugar reveals her own life traumas and comes up with uplifting psychobabble about healing and accepting 'the authentic you'...It’s just too sappy to be theatrical." Full Review

"The goopiest play of the year. In comparison, ‘Love Letters’ is Chekhov...I kept waiting for these letter writers to feel so much better about themselves after listening to Sugar grovel in her sordid past, and be done with her. But no. Sugar has learned from life’s trials and mistakes, and passes on those lessons free of charge (except for theatergoers) with her tight face scrunched into the deepest empathy and bathed with tears, lotsa tears." Full Review

"Vardalos portrays Strayed with no-nonsense directness…Each time one of the other actors appears, he or she is playing a different person so there is little opportunity to build a character…Sugar’s answers come out in polished prose. I would have preferred reading them at my leisure over hearing them on a stage…Thomas Kail’s direction tries hard to enliven a basically static situation. I admired all the good intentions, but I found the effort ultimately misguided." Full Review

"Sometimes moving, often insightful, and occasionally funny…Without more depth of character, the play starts to feel like someone reading too many fortune cookies…Ultimately, the play is saved—and the 80 minutes on stage made worthwhile—by the last question...Kail knows how to make emotional endings. If only he had insisted on a bit more narrative arc to the rest of the story, it could have made for a more powerful play." Full Review

"If reading 'Tiny Beautiful' is for some a spiritual experience, the play demystifies Strayed's process, moving briskly and balancing emotional punch with just enough humor to let the material breathe...Fans will appreciate Vardalos's vulnerable yet straightforward performance. They'll also appreciate her adaptation's hewing closely to the original text, without any superfluous content or character development. Mostly, though, they'll recognize and revel in Sugar's oft-memed prescriptions." Full Review