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Homeward bound, as the past slips away
Foote's 'Trip to Bountiful' at People's Light
Among Southern playwrights, Tennessee Williams and Horton Foote are yin and yang.
Williams displayed the touch of a poet; Foote's language is more prosaic, closer to what you might actually hear on the street. Williams mostly wrote about eccentrics, like Blanche DuBois and Big Daddy; Foote's characters are ordinary folks with problems and concerns that anyone could identify with. Foote's plays may not soar to the literary heights of A Streetcar Named Desire, but they do hold up a clear mirror to Southern life.
People's Light & Theatre Company is currently reviving The Trip to Bountiful, one of Foote's best works. He initially wrote it for TV in 1953 (decades before the networks were dominated by "reality" shows) and brought it to Broadway later that year. It surfaced again as a 1985 film, providing Geraldine Page with an Oscar and one of the best roles of her distinguished career.
From farm to city
In Foote's scenario, World War II has just ended, and Carrie Watts is an elderly woman living in a two-room apartment in Houston with her son, Ludie, and his disagreeable wife, Jessie Mae. Having grown up on a farm in the small town of Bountiful, Carrie finds city life stifling, and she can't stand Jessie Mae's constant nagging and sniping. She begs Ludie to take her back to visit Bountiful, but money is tight, and anyway, Ludie doesn't believe in clinging to the past.
Carrie has tried to run away before, but Ludie and Jessie Mae have always managed to catch her at the train station. This time, Carrie has decided to elude them by traveling by bus. When Jessie Mae isn't looking, Carrie slips out of the apartment, armed with a small suitcase and her Social Security check.
From there, Foote chronicles Carrie's homeward odyssey, as she encounters a number of obstacles and meets alternately with indifference and kindness.
Body language
Foote treats a large theme— the need to embrace change— in a very quiet, low-key manner, and director Abigail Adams finds the right tone for the material. Carrie is a very emotional part, but Carla Belver anchors this production without resorting to histrionics. In the early scenes, when Carrie doesn't speak much, Belver communicates the character's unhappiness and yearning solely through her face and body language.
William Zielinski plays Ludie as a likable, reasonable kind of guy, so that we sympathize with his exasperation at being caught between his wife and his mother. Teri Lamm does much more with the part of Jessie Mae than Carlin Glynn did in the 1985 movie, bringing out humor in the self-absorbed shrew.
Nice, smaller contributions are provided by Julianna Zinkel, as a young newlywed whom Carrie meets in the bus station, and Tom Byrn as the sympathetic sheriff who assists Carrie on the last leg of her journey.
Alexi Distler's sets transform smoothly and cleverly from cramped apartment to bus depot to the Texas countryside of Carrie's youth. They provide suitable backdrops for the quiet artistry of Foote's script.
Williams displayed the touch of a poet; Foote's language is more prosaic, closer to what you might actually hear on the street. Williams mostly wrote about eccentrics, like Blanche DuBois and Big Daddy; Foote's characters are ordinary folks with problems and concerns that anyone could identify with. Foote's plays may not soar to the literary heights of A Streetcar Named Desire, but they do hold up a clear mirror to Southern life.
People's Light & Theatre Company is currently reviving The Trip to Bountiful, one of Foote's best works. He initially wrote it for TV in 1953 (decades before the networks were dominated by "reality" shows) and brought it to Broadway later that year. It surfaced again as a 1985 film, providing Geraldine Page with an Oscar and one of the best roles of her distinguished career.
From farm to city
In Foote's scenario, World War II has just ended, and Carrie Watts is an elderly woman living in a two-room apartment in Houston with her son, Ludie, and his disagreeable wife, Jessie Mae. Having grown up on a farm in the small town of Bountiful, Carrie finds city life stifling, and she can't stand Jessie Mae's constant nagging and sniping. She begs Ludie to take her back to visit Bountiful, but money is tight, and anyway, Ludie doesn't believe in clinging to the past.
Carrie has tried to run away before, but Ludie and Jessie Mae have always managed to catch her at the train station. This time, Carrie has decided to elude them by traveling by bus. When Jessie Mae isn't looking, Carrie slips out of the apartment, armed with a small suitcase and her Social Security check.
From there, Foote chronicles Carrie's homeward odyssey, as she encounters a number of obstacles and meets alternately with indifference and kindness.
Body language
Foote treats a large theme— the need to embrace change— in a very quiet, low-key manner, and director Abigail Adams finds the right tone for the material. Carrie is a very emotional part, but Carla Belver anchors this production without resorting to histrionics. In the early scenes, when Carrie doesn't speak much, Belver communicates the character's unhappiness and yearning solely through her face and body language.
William Zielinski plays Ludie as a likable, reasonable kind of guy, so that we sympathize with his exasperation at being caught between his wife and his mother. Teri Lamm does much more with the part of Jessie Mae than Carlin Glynn did in the 1985 movie, bringing out humor in the self-absorbed shrew.
Nice, smaller contributions are provided by Julianna Zinkel, as a young newlywed whom Carrie meets in the bus station, and Tom Byrn as the sympathetic sheriff who assists Carrie on the last leg of her journey.
Alexi Distler's sets transform smoothly and cleverly from cramped apartment to bus depot to the Texas countryside of Carrie's youth. They provide suitable backdrops for the quiet artistry of Foote's script.
What, When, Where
The Trip to Bountiful. By Horton Foote; Abigail Adams directed. Through April 7, 2013 at People’s Light & Theatre Company, 39 Conestoga Rd., Malvern, Pa. (610) 644-3500 or peopleslight.org.
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