Mile Square Theatre’s ‘tiny beautiful things’ offers a big emotional payoff

DANIEL SETH PAGEL

From left, Jonah O’Hara-David, Mick Hilgers, Keivana Wallace and Joi Danielle Price co-star in “tiny beautiful things” at Mile Square Theatre in Hoboken.

Anonymity has its place. In Nia Vardalos’ “tiny beautiful things,” running at Hoboken’s Mile Square Theatre through March 23, wife, mother and author Cheryl Strayed takes on the pen name “Sugar” to write an advice column in which she responds to letters — desperate, pleading, funny or sometimes simply curious — from ordinary people who feel free to pour out their souls because they don’t need to give their names.

The letters, we’re told, are real, compiled first by Strayed into a book and then adapted by Vardalos into this play. The stories they tell — oh my God, these stories — can shake your faith in humanity. Some are sagas of cruelty and tragedy, unbearable loss or impossible choices.

DANIEL SETH PAGEL

Joi Danielle Price in “tiny beautiful things.”

But it is Sugar’s replies that make this play, eloquently and forcefully plumbing the depths of Sugar’s soul, using lessons gleaned from a lifetime of trauma and heartbreak to teach that redemption and salvation are possible. As performed by the four extraordinary actors in this production, this is a play that can move you to tears or make you laugh but, most importantly, help you believe in the possibility of a better tomorrow.

As always at Mile Square Theatre, the stage has been transformed into a single set. Cheryl Strayed’s kitchen bursts with detail and color, clever lighting and secret exits. The lighting and sound design prove equally impressive, manipulating mood and focus with subtle shifts of brightness and color, as well as with perfectly timed bits of business like a ringing bell that accentuates dialogue on the beat.

Joi Danielle Price brings energy, verve, passion and precision as Sugar, a woman of indeterminate age who commands the stage with long braids and immaculate diction. She shares the stage with three actors who, like wraiths, represent the many letter writers.

We know these characters are not actually there — that they are representing the disparate, anonymous voices of Sugar’s correspondents. But the audience truly feels their presence. The quartet even mixes and bakes a real batch of cookies while reciting their lines. The audience can smell them in the oven, and the players eat them later in the play. It’s a wonderful bit of stage magic that truly helps bring these voices to life.

DANIEL SETH PAGEL

From left, Mick Hilgers, Jonah O’Hara-David, Joi Danielle Price and Keivana Wallace in “tiny beautiful things.”

Mick Hilgers, looking like a lost soul who has been put through life’s wringer, plays Letter Writer #1. He is joined by two young people of color, graduates of Rutgers’ Mason Gross School of the Arts: the tall and laconic Jonah O’Hara-David and the pixieish Keivana Wallace (who was so good at Mile Square Theatre last year in “The Christmas Show Must Go On”). All three bring impeccable focus and presence to their parts; I had fun just watching their facial reactions as another character read a letter. There is not a second when everyone onstage isn’t fully immersed in the narrative.

The letters can be short, funny or impish — no more than “what’s your real name?” or “should I leave my spouse?” — or, in the case of one repeat writer, “WTF???” But others detail the most profound travails of modern life — parental abuse, rape, miscarriage, abortion. (Note: MST presents many kid-friendly productions. This is not one of them.)

As Sugar, Price pulls no punches in replying to the letters, detailing her own bad decisions, heroin abuse, family conflicts and more. But no matter how horrible the details, the stories always end with the possibility of a happy ending, or at least a more positive future.

This is especially true in a letter that Hilger reads as a father who lost his adult son in a hit-and-run. Hilger embodies the man’s grief and hopelessness with a palpable sense of pain, sitting alone in a corner under a spotlight as he tells his devastating tale. It’s a standout moment in a play full of them, even though the production whizzes by in what seems like a quick 90 minutes.

MST artistic director Kevin R. Free, who will be leaving the post after this production, directed “tiny beautiful things” with an impeccable eye to detail and timing. A director’s duties can often be hard to define, but if the job is to bring the playwright’s vision to life onstage, then job well done. Mile Square Theatre is almost never disappointing, but this production will stand as one its finest for years to come.

Mile Square Theatre in Hoboken will present “tiny beautiful things” through March 23; visit milesquaretheatre.org.

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