You Got Older: A Play

by Clare Barron

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.
 

 
 

Genres: Plays, Drama, Theatre

120 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.

[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.

[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

[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

[Josie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Worth reading for the last scene alone

[Doug · Rating 2 out of 5]

This play won two Obies and was nominated for a shitload of other awards ... but I really didn't like it at all. For one thing, it's billed as a 'dark comedy' - but that's only so if you find cancer and rape hilarious. Secondly, Barron does two things I absolutely detest: A. instead of giving definitive directions, she'll write things like "maybe' this happens, or 'perhaps' that happens. Make up your damn mind - either it does or it doesn't. B. When she IS decisive, she gives stage directions that are impossible to realize in production, e.g.: "Mae thinks about Damian who she fucked without a condom even though she didn't want to fuck him without a condom and how she put her legs over his shoulders. Or his legs over her...? No, HIS shoulders. HER legs over his shoulders." Sorry, not even Meryl Streep could play that so the audience 'gets it'. Or: "Mae is staggering through the snow... She collapses. The Cowboy appears. He digs her out of a snowdrift." Plus, the title makes absolutely no sense, but then I doubt many people would show up for a play entitled 'Dad's Dying of Cancer'.

[Clifton]

I wonder whether my rating would be higher if I saw this play live? Things I liked: the characters, the subtlety, the window into a single moment in a family's complex life. Things I liked less: the moments when it felt like this story was trying to hard to be dark, quirky and unconventional. But some of that comes down to performance and staging. There's a lot to work with here, and the dialogue definitely invited me in.