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Going to a Place Where You Already Are
Is there a heaven? Joe says no; it’s all a bunch of hokum. His wife, Roberta, has always claimed to agree. But lately she’s beginning to wonder, especially when they find themselves in church a lot, having reached the age when funerals are more frequent than weddings. Their granddaughter, Ellie, doesn’t have time in her own busy life to ponder the after-life. But when mortality confronts them, her grandmother’s claim to have gone to heaven and back doesn’t sound so crazy after all. With thoughtful storytelling and quiet wit, Brunstetter looks at beginnings, endings—and an enigmatic angel.
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About the author
Bekah Brunstetter
27 books10 followersBekah Brunstetter plays include CUTIE AND BEAR (Upcoming, The Roundabout) A LONG AND HAPPY LIFE (Upcoming, Naked Angels) BE A GOOD LITTLE WIDOW (ARS NOVA, Spring 2011; Collaboraction – Chicago) HOUSE OF HOME (Williamstown Theater Festival), OOHRAH! (Atlantic Theater, 2009; Steppenwolf Garage – 2012), and MISS LILLY GETS BONED (Finborough Theater 2010, Lark Playwrights Week 2009, Finborough Theater, June 2010).
She is a a New York New Voices Fellow through the Lark Play Development Center, member of The Primary Stages Writer's Group, the Naked Radio writing team. She is an alumni of the Women's Project writer's Lab, the Ars Nova Play Group, and the Playwright's Realm. She was the Playwright in Residence at the Finborough Theater, London, 2010-2011. She is a two-time Samuel French Short play festival winner, and two-time winner of the New York Innovative Theater Award for Best New Play.
She is currently working on an EST Sloan commission, and writing for a new MTV series created by Craig Wright, Underemployed.
She is a a New York New Voices Fellow through the Lark Play Development Center, member of The Primary Stages Writer's Group, the Naked Radio writing team. She is an alumni of the Women's Project writer's Lab, the Ars Nova Play Group, and the Playwright's Realm. She was the Playwright in Residence at the Finborough Theater, London, 2010-2011. She is a two-time Samuel French Short play festival winner, and two-time winner of the New York Innovative Theater Award for Best New Play.
She is currently working on an EST Sloan commission, and writing for a new MTV series created by Craig Wright, Underemployed.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
July 24, 2017
I saw a production of this play the other night here in Chicago at Redtwist Theater, featuring a good friend of mine in the lead role. Afterwards, we had a chance to talk about the play. She asked me, “I don’t know, did you like it? I mean, is it just sappy?” I told her I did like it, don't find it too sappy, though I thought I would have liked the production more than the play as written. Sometimes a great ensemble cast with a good director can overcome the potential pitfalls of a play. Sometimes they can even make a bad script good, or at least pretty good. I thought the former was what happened in this good production. Having seen the play, I read it and my reading confirmed that view.
Going to a Place Where You Already Are is a play about aging, facing death and faith. In it Joe and Roberta, who are in their seventies, and happy, clever atheists, find themselves listening to a lot of preachers in churches, as they are attending more and more funerals, many of them for friends who have died from cancer. Then Roberta gets her own cancer diagnosis, which brings to the surface things about the fragility of her atheism.
Then, when she is getting an MRI, something strange happens. She experiences a visitation from an angel, in a strange, ethereal place. She tells Joe she thinks it is heaven she has visited, which he scoffs at and explains is probably just a common medical phenomenon.
Roberta’s granddaughter Ellie, also a non-believer, also has a discussion with a lover about faith, and is a little offended when he harshly dismisses issues of faith. She doesn’t know how she feels, but isn’t as sure as he is about issues of faith. This is especially true as she finds out her grandmother may be dying. Okay, you can see the potential here for sappiness, right?
The cancer diagnosis creates the occasion for all the characters to rethink their views, which is not surprising or original, but the production brought out the sweetness and warmth of the characters that Brunstetter intended. As an aging guy myself, one who was raised “in the faith” and is no longer part of a religious tradition, I have often wondered what might happen to my agnosticism when I face death.
I liked the play even as written quite a bit, though I know that is influenced by the production I just saw. Some of it works out a little too neatly, and there’s an angel character that appears to Roberta who is really too good to be true, though I will also say I found this aspect of the play very sweet, one of my favorite parts of the play. I realize as I write this that this might mean I am the tiniest bit sappy. It may have something to do with a need I have for sweetness after all these cynical, hard-nosed Philip Roth novels I have been reading!
Going to a Place Where You Already Are is a play about aging, facing death and faith. In it Joe and Roberta, who are in their seventies, and happy, clever atheists, find themselves listening to a lot of preachers in churches, as they are attending more and more funerals, many of them for friends who have died from cancer. Then Roberta gets her own cancer diagnosis, which brings to the surface things about the fragility of her atheism.
Then, when she is getting an MRI, something strange happens. She experiences a visitation from an angel, in a strange, ethereal place. She tells Joe she thinks it is heaven she has visited, which he scoffs at and explains is probably just a common medical phenomenon.
Roberta’s granddaughter Ellie, also a non-believer, also has a discussion with a lover about faith, and is a little offended when he harshly dismisses issues of faith. She doesn’t know how she feels, but isn’t as sure as he is about issues of faith. This is especially true as she finds out her grandmother may be dying. Okay, you can see the potential here for sappiness, right?
The cancer diagnosis creates the occasion for all the characters to rethink their views, which is not surprising or original, but the production brought out the sweetness and warmth of the characters that Brunstetter intended. As an aging guy myself, one who was raised “in the faith” and is no longer part of a religious tradition, I have often wondered what might happen to my agnosticism when I face death.
I liked the play even as written quite a bit, though I know that is influenced by the production I just saw. Some of it works out a little too neatly, and there’s an angel character that appears to Roberta who is really too good to be true, though I will also say I found this aspect of the play very sweet, one of my favorite parts of the play. I realize as I write this that this might mean I am the tiniest bit sappy. It may have something to do with a need I have for sweetness after all these cynical, hard-nosed Philip Roth novels I have been reading!
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