It's a story of loss, gains and growing pains.
"Before You Were Alive," Beth Gilleland's 80-minute one-act that premiered Friday at the Illusion Theater in Minneapolis, chronicles a woman's unexpected path to motherhood.
It's understated and sincere with touches of wit and treacle.
Playwright and actor Gilleland has been a theater artist in the Twin Cities for decades, both writing shows such as "Sisters of Swing" and performing in the works of others. She gets revealingly autobiographical in "Alive," in which she is accompanied on flute and saxophone by young Chicago-based jazzman DB Carlson.
Under the no-fuss direction of Illusion Theater executive producing director Michael Robins, "Alive" offers a series of colorful, episodic vignettes about a woman's experiences as she dates a widower with a 4-year-old boy. The boy's mother, a fan of Gilleland's who often attended her shows, dies relatively young, leaving the boy's father a solo parent with a dog and a daughter from another mother. (The show raises a few gnarly questions but shies away from answering them.)
Kids have no filter and the boy, grieving and confused, flatly asks Gilleland, "Are you my new mom?"
That question comes after an early date with the boy's father. (Gilleland does not give them names, keeping it to "Boy" and "The Boy's Father"; it's understandable, given that there's a big reveal at the end of "Alive," but still impersonal.)
Gilleland animates her stories by walking around the Illusion stage, which is set up like a living room with a love seat and a white rug. She pauses from time to time to take sips of water or to rest while Carlson plays rustic, fairy-tale-esque pieces on the flute.
