Talley's Folly

Awhile ago, I experienced one of the most personally moving pieces of theater, a small show called "Talley's Folly," which was written by Lanford Wilson (a playwright I am now obsessed with) and starting two of my absolute favorites: Sarah Paulson and Danny Burnstein.

This show wasn't impacting for all the normal reasons. It didn't have catchy tunes or a big set of fancy costumes. It was quite understated in fact. But what it lacked in "sparkle" Talley's Folly made up for in emotion and feeling and finding me in the exact moment of my life that I needed it to.

See, I've just been through a bit of heart sadness. Not heartbreak, but that sad state you sometimes find yourself in when there's an ending to something you truly wished hadn't yet finished. Love and relationships are tricky, tricky things, and it is never fun when you come to the realization that it wasn't meant to be.  But that's life and that's how you learn and you grow.

And holy shit, sometimes it sure does suck.

But whenever I find myself licking wounds after a breakup, the universe always seems to know exactly how to pick my spirits back up.

And this time it gave me the lovely gift of Sally Talley.

The show is your classic tale of "two lost souls finding in each other a respite from loneliness." Each character a bit of an outsider, lost in their own sadness and trying to rise from their past pains.  It is a story of two different people who hide so much in their own fears and are so worried about what the other may think. Little do they know that neither really care. Their love looks beyond any shortcomings or doubts.

What I loved about the show is that it spoke directly to my heart. I rarely allow anything to do that. Call it a fault, call it self-protection, but Talley's Folly punched me in my core.

Which is why this scene broke me:

Matt:....What I told you I have never before spoken for the same reason that you speak nothing to anybody, because we are terrified that if once we allow ourselves to be cracked---I think people really do think that they're eggs. They're afraid they are the---who is the eggman, all the king's horses....
Sally: Humpty Dumpty.
Matt: We all have a Humpty Dumpty complex.

And it is so true. We're all afraid of getting those cracks in us. Of being broken, of not being whole. Of allowing another person inside of our hearts and inner thoughts.

I love me a deep night of theater.

After the show, I saw Sarah Paulson exiting and of course stopped to take a picture. She couldn't have been nicer.