An abandoned town can look like nothing more than empty streets in disrepair and dilapidated buildings nearing collapse onto undeveloped land. But to someone who once called that town home, it can be a cornucopia full of memories of wondrous times and youthful adventures. The emotional tie that connects us to plots of land and spaces of air is what motivates the main character of
Horton Foote's down comforter of a drama,
The Trip to Bountiful, now getting a beautiful and tender revival from The Signature Theatre Company.
As with most of the works by this 89-year-old playwright, The Trip to Bountiful (first a television drama, then a Broadway play and later a film) contains characters based on people he knew growing up in rural Texas. "When you've lived as long as I have, you see the beginnings and the ends of so many stories," he says.
The elderly Carrie Watts (Lois Smith) has not seen her home town of Bountiful in twenty years and, given her current situation, will most likely never set foot again on the farm where she grew up. It's 1953 and her days are mostly spent sitting in the living room, which doubles as her bedroom, of her son Ludie's (Devon Abner) small Houston apartment, looking out the window and watching the traffic race by while singing hymns to comfort herself.
An illness had kept Ludie out of work for two years, depleting his savings, and his new job doesn't pay enough to support himself and his wife, Jessie Mae (Hallie Foote) without the help of Carrie's monthly pension. Needing her money, but frustrated by her continual presence, Jessie Mae tends to treat Carrie like a child, scolding her for running in the house and ordering her not to sing in her presence. ("You know what those hymns do to my nerves.")
So when her next pension check arrives in the mail, Carrie takes the opportunity to hide it until her chance to run off to the bus depot and buy her ticket home. With Ludie and Jessie Mae on her trail, she must fight her failing health and fading memory and reach her goal by relying on... I don't want to say "the kindness of strangers", but darn it all, that's what she relies on.
Foote's simple eloquence in this search for lost dignity is delicately directed with a selectively lazy touch by Harris Yulin. The slow pacing of the early scenes, emphasizing the monotony of Carrie's home life away from home, gives way to the innocent excitement that comes from her joy in taking a simple bus ride, and is followed by the serenity of accomplishment at the end. It's fair to say that not a lot happens in The Trip to Bountiful, but what does happen is rich with good, decent sentiment.
Lois Smith sparkles as Carrie. Wearing a dreary house dress (good costuming work by Martin Pakledinaz) she scurries about E. David Cosier's two-room apartment set, which allows us to see her mischievously plotting her escape while Ludie and Jessie Mae talk in the other room. Pouting like a saddened child when scolded by her daughter-in-law, we can see hopefulness in her eyes when she sings to the Lord or speaks of her beloved Bountiful. Once on the bus, we can actually experience her grace and maturity as she befriends a nervous bride (sweetly played by Meghan Andrews) who is on a life-changing trip of her own. When word of her "escape" gets through to a bus station just outside of her destination, Smith's plea to the sympathetic, but duty-bound sheriff (Jim Demarse), to let her have just one short glimpse of the farm she'll never see again is enough to rip your heart out.
Hallie Foote, the author's daughter who frequently takes rather naturally to her father's material, is just right as Jessie Mae. Never intending to be cruel in her controlling ways, conversations about her unsuccessful attempts to conceive a child suggest she is bottling up her frustration and letting it out as harsh parenting. Also right on the mark is Devon Abner as a strong, silent, yet emasculated would-be breadwinner trying to negotiate peace between the two women in his life.
Cosier's set, which easily glides from two small rooms to a couple of bus stations and finally to what's left of Bountiful, is wonderfully detailed and elaborate for the small space. Excellent lighting by John McKernon and sound design by Fritz Patton add to an outstanding production.
With the support of Time Warner, Inc., Signature is able to make all seats for The Trip to Bountiful available for only $15. At regular Off-Broadway prices this production would be a must-see. At $15 this must be the biggest theatre bargain in town. Go and be enthralled .
Photos by Carol Rosegg: Top: Meghan Andrews and Lois Smith
Bottom: Lois Smith, Devon Abner and Hallie Foote
