Madea's Big Happy Family

This weekend, one of my friends, Kelly Moncrief, flew up from Dallas for a visit. She, Ryan, and I went to see a Tyler Perry play, called Madea's Big Happy Family. Ryan and I love watching all the "Madea" movies (Madea's Family Reunion, Madea Goes to Jail, etc.) It was hilarious to see Tyler Perry in person, pacing around the stage in his great big dress, toting a gun. What made the show especially fun was the fact that he would occasionally talk at the audience. (He let us know that since he wrote the play, he could ad lib if he wanted!)

The play tells the story of a woman who is dying of cancer and wants to gather her family about her to give them the news. When they get together, they all start bickering with each other and their spouses, without their mother being able to share the news. Over the course of the play, and following the death of their mother, the family works together to work out their issues. I sometimes feel like Tyler Perry's movies/plays are a little on the schmaltzy side and end a little too perfectly. In this case, though, after the end of the play, he came out on stage, out of his Madea costume, and explained how he wrote the play because his mother passed away in December. It made me realize this play had special significance to him, and should for us as well. The message he left with us at the end was to reconcile with whomever we needed to reconcile, before it was too late and we didn't get that chance anymore.

It was refreshing to hear such blatantly strong, Christian themes in a play. Tyler Perry said at the end that the he loved writing plays for us and seeing us at the play, because we are a segment of the population that Hollywood just can't figure out. I'm grateful that someone like Tyler Perry is writing wholesome, encouraging... and funny... plays and movies for us to see.