[NEohioPAL] Review of "The Trip to Bountiful" at the Cleveland Play House

[Bob Abelman]

Cleveland Play House's 'Bountiful' is a classic piece of 'ordinary' theater

 

Bob Abelman

News-Herald, Chagrin Valley Times, Solon Times, Geauga Times Courier

Member, International Association of Theatre Critics 

 

This review appeared in the News-Herald 2/18/11

 

In 1953, when it aired on NBC's The Philco-Goodyear Television Playhouse, Horton Foote's play The Trip to Bountiful fit the mold for what was then-labeled "theater of the ordinary":  A small story about simple people told simply.

 

TV was still in its infancy and the original plays that were aired live on this and other anthology programs needed to accommodate a limited budget, restrictive production facilities and the tiny TV screens they would be viewed on.  Small and simple was the rule.

 

Although production values were expanded when this play went to Broadway and, later, when it became an Academy Award-winning film, the play itself remains a simple piece of theater of the ordinary.  Emotions rather than action drive the drama.  Good writing rather than theatrical pyrotechnics serves as the main attraction.  

 

Therein lies this play's charm and its poignancy, and this is what is brought to the stage in the delightful Cleveland Play House production of The Trip to Bountiful.

 

Bountiful revolves around Carrie Watts, an elderly widower living in the claustrophobic, urban confines of her son and daughter-in-law's Houston apartment in the 1940s.  Ailing and aching for the past, Carrie desperately wants to get back to her hometown of Bountiful, Texas one last time before she dies.  Her protective son, Ludie, and his self-centered wife, Jessie Mae, think it best that she stays put.

 

The moral of this play is small and simple:  Home is where the heart is.  Yet, Foote's brilliance as a playwright works into this uncomplicated tale his perspective on the changing landscape of America and insight into the many small indignities of growing old within it.

 

To drive these points home to the audience, director Timothy Douglas and scenic designer Tony Cisek create a nondescript, impressionistic landscape for this production.  The expansive Texas sky and the acres of overgrown Bountiful farmland are represented by bright, blue patterned scrims that surround the stage. The old house is little more than a piece of picket fencing and an inkling of a front porch.

 

This allows us to imprint our own mental images onto the stage, wherever our own Bountiful and whenever our own past might be.

 

Foote's brilliance can also be found in his characters.  These are simply drawn and easily cubby-holed souls with a simple function:  either facilitate or complicate Carrie's trip back to Bountiful.  Yet, there is depth and richness to be mined, and they are by a superb cast.  

 

Lizan Mitchell brings dimension and vivacity to Carrie, and delivers a wonderfully engaging performance.   Carrie is an immediately sympathetic and thoroughly endearing character thanks to Mitchell's thoughtful preparation for this role and, also, the perfect counterpoint portrayal of Jessie Mae by an excellent Chinai Hardy.  Hardy takes a character built for caricature-insensitive, infertile and self-absorbed-and makes her lovable and complex enough to warrant Ludie's affection.

 

Rather than being henpecked, beaten and empty, Howard W. Overshown's Ludie is a strong, soft spoken and sustainable survivor.  This does not always come across in Foote's words, but it is clearly his intention and most assuredly comes across in Overshown's depiction.  Similarly, Jessica Frances Dukes' Thelma, Carrie's unassuming travel companion, reveals a spark and a spirit that gives life and depth to an otherwise simple creature.

 

Director Douglas purposefully adds a layer of complexity to this otherwise simple production by having the story told from an African-American perspective by casting black actors in the featured roles. This departs from the play's original intent.  According to the program notes, the director wished to "shed some light on the heretofore little known black middle class in 1940s Houston."

 

This it does not do, for Foote's story and storytelling taps universal and evergreen themes that are neither enhanced nor diminished by the color of the characters.  

 

Still, this innovation does amplify the urgency of Ludie's concern-and ours as well-for his elderly mother's safety as she travels alone by bus, at night, to the middle of nowhere, in the pre-Civil Rights South. 

 

And the more spiritual hymnals sung by this Carrie are more fetching than the scripted "Softly and Tenderly," although the thematically ideal line "Come home, Come home, Ye who are weary come home" is sorely missed.

 

As delightful as this piece of theater is, it is no longer the 1950s and those more accustomed to theatrical pyrotechnics for their entertainment may find the smallness or simplicity of "The Trip to Bountiful" an arduous undertaking.   So be it.  For everyone else, this production of this "ordinary" play is a most pleasant reverie.  

  

The Trip to Bountiful continues through February 27 in The Cleveland Play House's Drury Theatre.  For tickets, which range from $46 to $66, call 216-795-7000 or visit www.clevelandplayhouse.com.

 

 
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