There is so much at work in this short play! Great characters. Wonderfully written--I will carry so many lines of dialogue away with me. John Mabey gives us a beautiful excavation of the complexities of being human.

Once again, John Mabey lifts a veil on our own lives that we so rarely glimpse under - even if we scour our lives regularly. In this case, we see the real lives of parents and the legacies we receive, good and bad. Mabey reminds us that families are not a finite thing - discoveries are made along the way - as we mature, they age and lives close. To be able to see what this brother and sister discover is a joy: they are not stuck. They grow. We all have hope. Well done, Mabey.

Messy, messy, messy, are the family dynamics explored so beautifully in John Mabey’s Stages of Joy. As Sharon and Mattie near the end of clearing out their deceased parents’ house, an accidental discovery sheds potential new light on old wounds — but whether that will prove to be a balm or more salt is unclear. The natural, easy flow of dialogue gives us two memorable characters: real, complicated adult siblings who are distanced but not estranged, loving but not close, and trying to do their best by each other. Well done.