You Got Older

by Clare Barron

WINNER - 2015 Obie Award for Playwriting and PerformanceTHE KILROYS LIST - 1st Place - 2015

FINALIST - 2015 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize

NOMINEE - 2015 4 Drama Desk Awards including Best Play

Mae returns home to help take care of Dad and - maybe (a little) - herself. "You Got Older" is a tender and darkly comic new play about family, illness, and cowboys - and how to remain standing when everything you know comes crashing down around you.

Genres: Plays, Drama, Theatre

88 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2015

About the author

Clare Barron is a playwright and actor from Wenatchee, Washington. She won the 2015 Obie Award for Playwriting for You Got Older. She was a finalist for the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for Dance Nation.

Source: Wikipedia

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Reviews

[Kaci Pelias · Rating 5 out of 5]

family!!!! feeling lost/aimless!!! inevitability!!!! sad!!! dance party!!! confetti!!!! celebrations!!!! crying on the bus????

[Kerala McGrail · Rating 4 out of 5]

I want to say 4.5 but Goodreads hates me.

I really loved this writing style a lot.

The sibling relationship is so funny and accurate.

The beard hair scene loses me the .5 I straight up can’t. I know that’s the point but omfg 😭😭😭😭

[Leigh · Rating 4 out of 5]

You Got Older is one of the better plays I've read in a long time. The relationship between Mae and her dad bears some similarities to my own relationship with my dad and that really impacted my connection to this piece.

I really like how Clare Barron isn't afraid to go "there" with some really kind of weird exchanges between characters, but in it's the weirdness that makes it so authentic.

[Fiona W · Rating 5 out of 5]

crying during nap time. buts it’s about good dads and everything about good dads makes me cry.

[Emily Lev · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cuts to the core without being on the nose. A look into grief and the difficulty to live life in the midst of pain.

[Jessica López-Barkl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well...that was a tough read for someone who has lost a father and had a wedding without him... It's pretty freaking accurate, though, the feelings that occur in traumatic circumstances and the illogical/irrational things that one does regularly during the trauma. How (almost) comic one's choices are, and yet so damn painful to think back on...

So...I guess this is a good play; I should probably sit with it a day before writing a review, but...I'm writing it, regardless.

I also liked that the play is set in a part of Washington State that reminds me of my own childhood, and I also liked the specificity of the characters, without having too much exposition.

The sexiness and the language would probably make this a difficult sell to a lot of theaters, but...I like it...

[Ricki · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very typical contemporary dysfunctional family play.

[Sabrina Oliveri · Rating 1 out of 5]

Cowboy. Beard hair. Pus. No thank you.

[Adrian Collins · Rating 4 out of 5]

What I like about this play the most, and what sets it apart from other "dysfunctional family" plays for me, is that this family isn't estranged and hateful towards each other. This family understands each other and takes care of each other because they are family. Because there is love. We get to see the perverse and weird parts of Mae's inner self, and we don't pity her. We aren't shaming her. We're right there with her, because Clare Barron has let us into this private space with her. And when Mae interacts with her father and the rest of her family, she doesn't have to feel ashamed or suppressed. Because she's trying her hardest and she's not doing it alone.

[eleanor]

dead dads with voice problems, disability, living with your parents for periods of time as an adult, oh my. i wrote a short story that i’m realizing cribs a lot from this, and i nurse a secret theory that both stanley and the cowboy in detransition, baby take a lot from the cowboy in this. apparently there’s a revival of this starring alia shawkat and directed by original director that’s starting off broadway soon, and i wish it wasn’t prohibitively expensive to go see it because i think it’d be huge for me

[Daniel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Raunchy, surprising, scattered in a truly exciting kind of way—it’s challenging to make a head of, in the way that life is hard to make sense of. Ultimately really poignant about how the difficulties of facing the future.

[Ben Greenwood · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ben Reads Plays #4

What’s great is that it’s not afraid to be weird to present a truth. At times the half-finished thoughts feel a bit all over the place but I think those last moments are really earned.

Feels good to return to Clare Barron

[Si Squires-Kasten · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rises above the sea of contemporary plays written in a similar voice by its gentle pressure against the conventions of naturalism and by how sincerely its emotions are felt.

[Claire Hardwick · Rating 4 out of 5]

i liked dance nation better but this one is still good!

[Alexander · Rating 4 out of 5]

This play is well written and takes an interesting yet predictable turn. This story takes the reader on a journey of a family specifically Mae (the daughter) and their journey dealing with cancer.

[Alyson Vance · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautiful play filled with moments of surrealism and yet so grounded in reality. Moved me to tears as Clare Barron plays often do.

[Megan Muratore · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this a lot! The last few pages made me sob. I want to see this on stage.

[isa · Rating 4 out of 5]

loved this play.... made me cry a little in a good way. clare barron is a very good writer.

[Hannah Strauss · Rating 5 out of 5]

I cried on the bus while reading this

[Shirley · Rating 4 out of 5]

rash and cancer and sad love content

[Becca Ford · Rating 4 out of 5]

Probably good for a group scene.

[chelsea · Rating 4 out of 5]

grief in an understandable way that i cannot describe nor comprehend. the dance party makes sense. the cowboy makes sense. im sad now.

[Madeline · Rating 4 out of 5]

i love claire barron- weird reality

[Elijah Blough · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting read. Loved the dialogue. The cowboy was off putting. Very interesting situation and a fulfilling resolution. Good scenes

[Ainsley Powers · Rating 4 out of 5]

Clare Barron is saying something about women and sex
that every other woman knows
but only she is saying it

[Molly Lane · Rating 4 out of 5]

cowboy, sex, etc.

[leah hohauser · Rating 3 out of 5]

Little bit hysterical, weird, quite sweet. But sometimes I feel like I’m reading about the same (white) family over and over and over again

[Cassie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well I’d like to write this well

[Sarkis Antonyan · Rating 2 out of 5]

i feel like i just wasted my time

[grace fleming de torres · Rating 2 out of 5]

i lied i think this was batshit in a bad way actually but yay 5 page paper on bdsm cowboy cancer play