"Harrison, TX: Three Plays by Horton Foote" at Primary Stages at 59E59 Theater A
Reviewed by David Roberts
Theatre Reviews Limited
Like an awkward young man hoping to find star-crossed love, or a physically challenged young man hoping to find understanding, or a love-sick young man howling at the Harvest Moon, Harrison, TX stealthily and seductively creeps up on its inhabitants demanding answers to hauntingly human questions about the vicissitudes of existence.
Horton Foote, like William Faulker, Flannery O’Connor, and Tennessee Williams, often casts place as protagonist against and through which all other characters react, all conflicts arise, and all plots develop. This refined sense of setting gives “Harrison, TX: Three Plays by Horton Foote” a delicious advantage as it examines three slices of Southern life in three Acts, two taking place in 1928, the third occurring in 1952 – all in the place and mood of Harrison, Texas.
“Blind Date” and “The One-Armed Man” were published in 1986 and 1993, respectively. “The Midnight Caller,” the earliest of the plays, was published in 1959. The mood during the writing of all three plays was one of optimism and hope, victory and celebration. As the mood of each play counterpoints with the mood of the time each was written, the themes of the kinship between family and individual, community and individual, adversity, and dissolution develop with nagging clarity.
While spending time with her Aunt Dolores in Harrison, TX, Sarah Nancy tries to maintain her independence in the midst of meeting the eligible men her aunt invites home. Desperate for a successful liaison after a series of disastrous meetings, Dolores invites Felix to meet her niece. There is a bit of Amanda Wingfield in Dolores, mostly in her Southern charm and in her desire for her niece to be married. Like Laura Wingfield, Sarah Nancy has a disability, though not a physical one: Sarah Nancy, according to Dolores, is disabled in relationship because of her poor disposition and her inability to carry on a conversation. And not unlike Amanda’s gone-missing husband in “The Glass Menagerie,” Robert (Devon Abner) cares little about his wife’s matchmaking efforts and might as well be a portrait on the wall overseeing all. Hallie Foote (Dolores) and Andrea Lynn Green (Sarah Nancy) bring their characters to vibrant reality and Evan Jonigkeit’s awkward books-of-the-Bible-reciting Felix is a perfect foil for Sarah Nancy’s hatred of all things men. In the end, the optimism of the 1980’s and the decade’s characteristic search for independence counterpoint with the pre-Depression optimism of 1928. Felix returns to Sarah Nancy after she rejects him, determined to make a connection. And he does. The lights fade on two young people who have found a way to connect: simply sitting and reading in the glow of nascent friendship.
The looming Great Depression hides behind set designer Marion Williams’ splendid staircase in “The One-Armed Man.” After losing his arm to one of the cotton processing machines in C. W. Rowe’s plant, McHenry tires of Rowe’s unwillingness to “give back” McHenry’s severed arm and kills his former boss. Jeremy Bobb’s flawless portrayal of C. W. Rowe brilliantly foreshadows all the reasons for the events of Black Thursday: greed, indifference to human suffering, racism, and the misplaced hope in the fruits of the Industrial Revolution to solve economic turmoil. Alexander Cendese brings McHenry’s frustration and anger to believability. It is fascinating to counterpoint this desperate worker’s rage with the rage exploding currently in 2012. Devon Abner’s Pinkey, underpaid assistant to C. W. Rowe, enters and exits in a beautifully choreographed “dance” that further discloses Rowe’s inability to discern human adversity.
Perhaps the most haunting Act is the play’s third: “The Midnight Caller.” Three disparate single women, Alma Jean Jordan, “Cutie” Spencer, and Miss Rowena Douglas, occupy Mrs. Crawford’s boarding house and deal collectively and individually with the addition of the establishment’s first male occupant, Mr. Ralph Johnston, and Harrison’s much talked about Helen Crews. Andrea Lynn Green (“Cutie Spencer), Hallie Foote (Mrs. Crawford), Jeremy Bobb (Mr. Ralph Johnston), and Alexander Cendese (Harvey Weems) are joined by Mary Bacon (Alma Jean Jordan), Jayne Houdyshell (Miss Rowena Douglas), and Jenny Dare Paulin (Helen Crews) for the well-directed ensemble powerhouse that electrifies the stage with Horton Foote’s script. Themes of fear and suspicion mingle with those of desperation and hope as these characters attempt to adjust to radical change and unfamiliar mores in a place formerly blessed with the Harvest Moon and the twinkling of fireflies.
Harvey Weems’ plaintive cry for his lost love Helen counterpoints Miss Rowena Douglas’ query “When is it gonna end?” They both identify with the adversity amidst the hopefulness of post-War War II America. It is Miss Rowena who seems to deliver the play’s most piercing and provocative lines and Jayne Houdyshell delivers these lines with such grace and understanding as to make them spiritual. A bridge between pre and post-World War II America, she is able to teach her boarding house “students” with the same perceptiveness and caring she once taught now-imprisoned Harvey Weems to sing “When Day Is Done.”
Miss Rowena reflects on all she has seen sitting on the gallery of Mrs. Crawford’s boarding house and laments that, “There is never any moderation.” This plaintive complaint reverberates across the decades of the 1920’s, the 1950’s, the 1980’s and the first decade of the twenty-first century and brings relevance to Horton Foote’s incisive and illuminating writing. The rhythms of conversation echoing from the living rooms, offices, and sitting rooms of Harrison, TX are the rhythms of universal conversation and, like Shakespeare’s iambic pentameter, echo the rhythms of the human heart.
HARRISON, TX: THREE PLAYS BY HORTON FOOTE
Presented by Primary Stages. Directed by Pam MacKinnon. Scenic Design by Marion Williams. Costume Design by Kaye Voyce. Lighting Design by Tyler Micoleau. Original Music and Sound Design by Broken Chord.
WITH: Devon Abner, Mary Bacon, Jeremy Bobb, Alexander Cendese, Hallie Foote, Andrea Lynn Green, Jayne Houdyshell, Evan Jonigkeit, and Jenny Dare Paulin.
WHERE: Through September 15 at Primary Stages at 58E59 Theaters. Tickets may be purchased by calling 212) 279-4200, online at www.primarystages.org
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 | Permalink | Posted by David Roberts on Thursday, August 23, 2012 |
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