by **** (out of 5)
Eden Sher starred as Sue Heck, the middle child on ABC’s The Middle, for nine seasons and 215 episodes from 2009-2018. A spin-off was even explored for her character afterward. Then the pandemic hit, and Sher unexpectedly found herself expecting identical twins.
In a surprisingly emotional hour, in Monday’s performance, perhaps the most surprising emotions came from Sher herself. She revealed to us how she was crying at unscheduled moments, how she still hadn’t figured out the source or reasoning behind a peculiar phlegmy problem. She almost fell back to the floor in her chair. A burp, even. Were these unplanned moments signs? But there seemed something even more symbolic to take away from the notion that Sher felt the most difficult and worst day of her life happened when she gave birth to her twins. Sure, Sher’s premature labor brought with it terrible complications both for her and for both of her babies. But even before all of that, Sher’s life had been destabilizing on the regular due to regular interruptions from strangers recognizing her as a sitcom star. And because she began playing Sue when she was only 17, much of Sher’s own character traits became Sue’s eccentricities. Where does Sue and and Sher begin? Are they identical twins? Who even is the actress when she’s not acting? Turns out Eden Sher, as a wife and mother of two, remains both winsome and winning in her Fringe debut.
Eden Sher: I Was On A Sitcom runs through Aug. 28 at Gilded Balloon Teviot, Turret
