Overview

Winner of a 2015 Obie Award for Playwriting Mae has returned home to help her father while he undergoes treatment for cancer. But she needs a little help herself. She's just lost her boyfriend and her job. (It turns out there are consequences to dating your boss . . .) And she's desperately craving intimacy of any sort. Mae escapes into the the arms of a chain-smoking, imaginary Cowboy who turns her on and ties her up. And she escapes into chatter with her siblings as they attempt to distract and entertain themselves in a hospital waiting room. But ultimately, it's her deep love for her father that teaches Mae to remain optimistic and ambitious in the face of suffering and that gets her back on track. Barron's characters reveal themselves in odd, surprising details that leave disproportionately large impressions. With deceptive understatement, Barron illustrates both small moments of human connection and our ferocious desire for it, always surging beneath the surface. You Got Older won a 2015 Obie Award, was nominated for a 2015 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding New Play, and was a finalist for the 2015 Susan Smith Blackburn Award.

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Reviews

This terrific new play by Clare Barron . . . offers a hilarious and painfully affecting blend of oddball dialogue, beautifully observed family dynamics, and a preoccupation with the weird ways of the body . . . Barron's special genius lies in the deep dividends she derives from small talk. - The New Yorker [Barron's] play . . . blends offbeat, sometimes raunchy comedy into a slowly fused drama. Ms. Barron is not afraid of the occasional flight of fancy . . . and still more startling surprises. - New York Times Clare Barron's extraordinary You Got Older moved me as few new plays have. As a critic, I can usually shake things off fast . . . but for some time after the play's wrenching finale, I found myself literally shaking. You Got Older beautifully captures elusive things about avoidance: It's about the denial of death, but also the denial of living. Like a great short story, it succeeds through details that . . . coalesce with a force all the stronger for their subtlety . . . there are moments in this play that I know I won't forget. - Time Out New York

This terrific new play by Clare Barron ... offers a hilarious and painfully affecting blend of oddball dialogue, beautifully observed family dynamics, and a preoccupation with the weird ways of the body ... Barron's special genius lies in the deep dividends she derives from small talk. - The New Yorker [Barron's] play ... blends offbeat, sometimes raunchy comedy into a slowly fused drama. Ms. Barron is not afraid of the occasional flight of fancy ... and still more startling surprises. - New York Times Clare Barron's extraordinary You Got Older moved me as few new plays have. As a critic, I can usually shake things off fast ... but for some time after the play's wrenching finale, I found myself literally shaking. You Got Older beautifully captures elusive things about avoidance: It's about the denial of death, but also the denial of living. Like a great short story, it succeeds through details that ... coalesce with a force all the stronger for their subtlety ... there are moments in this play that I know I won't forget. - Time Out New York

Author Information

Clare Barron is the 2014 P73 Playwriting Fellow and the recipient of the 2014-15 Paula Vogel Playwriting Award.

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