REVIEW: I Want to Know You All My Life (Globe Openstage)

Writer (and YAM member) Arielle Joria shares vulnerable, sweet, painful, funny, and thoughtful monologues about friendship, love, and human connection in I Want to Know You All My Life.

Written and directed by Arielle Joria, Globe Openstage's I Want to Know You All My Life premiered on Zoom in April and has since been available on YouTube. Running time is about 2.5 hours. And don't let the word "Zoom" turn you off from it: with these monologues, there is no sense of the spacial limitations that can sometimes affect larger cast shows in the medium. In fact, it's the perfect format for this expressive script with all its nuances and subtleties.

This collection of deeply personal and relatable stories smoothly travels from giggly joy to human fear to almost weepy contentment to gentle hope and more. Each monologue is self-contained, but they all complement each other well. One story about an uneven friendship with an aging and admired man fits nicely with another about dear friends consciously and happily dedicating time and energy to the other's joy. One story about being included and including others finds a home with another about the crushing fear of being unloved and burdensome. The script is raw, and the cast's performances bring an electricity to the material that is magical, if sometimes understandably intense for some more weepy audience members (like myself). I suggest grabbing a nice treat and curling up for a bit of therapeutic thinking and laughter with this show. It's a special one.

The cast includes: Amber Brooke, Sarah Souser, Connie Ramsay, Thomas Udlock (YAM), Megha Shetty, Kira Simmons, Wendy Briggs (YAM), Elizabeth Weiss (YAM), Jonathan Udlock (YAM), Tashina Gorgone, Leslie Barnett, Margaret McCabe-Janicki, Megan Fraedrich (YAM), Jeff Elmore, Liana Olear, and Jane Margulies Kalbfeld.