Tag Archives: Pam MacKinnon

HARRISON, TX: THREE PLAYS BY HORTON FOOTE

BLIND DATE is the first of three intimate short dramas by Horton Foote set in Harrison, Texas

Primary Stages, 59E59 Theaters
59 East 59th St, between Park & Madison Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through September 15, $30-$70
212-279-4200
www.59e59.org

Texas-born playwright and screenwriter Horton Foote, who died in 2009 at the age of ninety-two after a long, fruitful career, had an uncanny knack for capturing the inherent beauty and heartbreak of American life, putting realistic characters in believable situations, just going through their daily chores of merely existing. He is best known for such films as Tender Mercies and To Kill a Mockingbird (for which he won an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay) and such plays as The Trip to Bountiful, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Young Man from Atlanta, and the three-part “Orphans’ Home Cycle.” His intoxicating slice-of-life Americana is currently on view in Harrison, TX, a compilation of three short works, ably directed by Pam MacKinnon (Clybourne Park), that have been brought together at Primary Stages. Blind Date is set in Harrison in 1928, on the cusp of the Great Depression, as pouty sourpuss Sarah Nancy (Andrea Lynn Green) has been sent to live with her aunt Dolores (Hallie Foote, one of Horton’s daughters) and uncle Robert (Devon Abner). Sarah Nancy is a mopey, bored young woman who’d rather hang out in her room than have to talk to anyone, especially young men, but Dolores is determined to get her a boyfriend and has thus set him up with Felix (Evan Jonigkeit), a local insurance salesman who is due to show up any minute. Dolores tries to coach Sarah Nancy on how to be a better conversationalist while also attempting to take care of her rather hapless husband, but when Felix arrives, things go a bit crazy.

Andrea Lynn Green and Jayne Houdyshell think of the good times in Horton Foote’s THE MIDNIGHT CALLER

In The One-Armed Man, also set in 1928, an angry former employee, McHenry (Alexander Cendese), is demanding to see his old boss, C. W. Rowe (Jeremy Bobb), so he can get back the arm he lost in an accident, but Rowe seems more intent on railing on about his personal success to his accountant, Pinkey (Abner). Rowe offers McHenry five dollars to go away, but it’s going to take a lot more than money to make things straight. The third play, The Midnight Caller, is set nearly a quarter-century later, but it feels like Harrison hasn’t changed a bit as a trio of gossipy women — judgmental chatterbox Alma Jean Jordan (Mary Bacon), “Cutie” Spencer (Green), and older teacher Miss Rowena Douglas (Jayne Houdyshell) — debate the upcoming arrival of Helen Crews (Jenny Dare Paulin), a woman with a reputation who is moving into their boarding house after being thrown out by her mother for her questionable activities. When a stranger, Ralph Johnston (Bobb), also shows up looking for a room, the situation gets a lot more complicated. Unfortunately, the eventual appearance of Helen’s former flame, Harvey Weems (Cendese), severely detracts from the play, which is otherwise sweet and engaging. In the first and third works, Foote’s snappy down-home dialogue is the centerpiece, adding beautiful, funny, poetic language to the relatively simple goings-on, with characters that are easy to warm to, especially Miss Rowena, who looks out the window, remembering what it was like as a child gazing out at the fireflies. The middle piece is far more abrupt and shocking, providing a strong counterpoint that would have felt significantly out of place had it started or finished the trio of plays. Taken together, the three pieces, running approximately one hundred minutes and performed without an intermission, offer a fascinating examination of an old-time America that might not be quite as far away as one might imagine. (Harrison, TX runs through September 15 and will be followed at Primary Stages by Him, a new play by another of Foote’s daughters, Daisy Foote.)

CLYBOURNE PARK

In 1959, a community is at odds when a black couple is about to move in (photo by Nathan Johnson)

Walter Kerr Theatre
219 West 48th St.
Extended through September 2, $30 – $220
clybournepark.com

The best plays stay with you long after you leave the theater, making you think and encouraging an ongoing dialogue. Bruce Norris’s Clybourne Park is one such play. As we exited the theater, my guest and I got into a heated discussion about several of the issues the complex story raises, for nothing about Clybourne Park is black and white, yet everything about Clybourne Park is black and white. Winner of the Tony and the Olivier for Best Play as well as the Pulitzer Prize, Clybourne Park is divided into two distinct halves that are cleverly linked in both obvious and subtle ways by writer Norris (The Infidel, Purple Heart) and director Pam MacKinnon (Completeness, The Four of Us). Inspired by A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry, the first black playwright to have her work produced on Broadway, Clybourne Park opens in 1959, as Russ (Frank Wood) and Bev Stoller (Christina Kirk) are preparing to leave their lily-white neighborhood shortly after a family tragedy. When Karl Lindner (Jeremy Shamos) finds out that their house is being sold to a black couple, he tries to convince Russ not to go through with the deal, worried about what will happen to property values and afraid of potential white flight. Meanwhile, Albert (Damon Gupton) comes to the house to pick up his wife, Francine (Crystal A. Dickinson), who works as the Stollers’ maid, and he is not afraid to throw in his own two cents. As things threaten to explode, Karl’s wife, Betsy (Annie Parisse), a deaf woman who is pregnant, can’t quite understand why everyone is getting so mad at one another, and Rev. Jim (Brendan Griffin) finds that church doctrine is not going to help solve this problem either.

In 2009, a community is at odds when a white couple is about to move in (photo by Nathan Johnson)

The second act takes place fifty years later, in 2009, as a white couple, Steve (Shamos) and his pregnant wife, Lindsey (Parisse), have bought the very same house, now dilapidated, from a black couple, Lena (Dickinson) and Kevin (Gupton). As ditzy real estate agent Kathy (Kirk) shares some interesting tidbits about the changing nature of her business, the two couples are soon involved in a nasty battle that centers on the one word nobody wants to say: race. Clybourne Park is an extremely cleverly written play, tackling long-standing racial issues with intelligence, sensitivity, and humor. Having the actors play dual roles furthers direct comparison between the past and the present. Early in the second act, Steve is asked whether Lindsey is pregnant with a boy or a girl; while Steve knows the answer, Lindsey still wants to be surprised, so she puts her fingers in her ears and makes silly noises so as not to hear, echoing the deaf Betsy portrayed by Parisse in the first act. In the 1959 section, Russ is not ready to bring down a sentimental object from the attic; in 2009, hired hand Dan (Wood) is digging up the backyard, getting ready to potentially raze the house, much to the consternation of Lena, Kevin, and local resident Tom (Griffin), who is trying to address community rules. There are other fascinating, well-plotted similarities between the characters that the actors play in the first act with those they portray in the second act, giving the production a continuity that also shows how difficult it is for people to accept and adapt to change, no matter their race or religion. Clybourne Park is a smartly told story that clearly points out how far we truly are from a so-called post-racial society, a play that will stay with you for a very long time. (As an added bonus, the Lincoln Center Theater Review has dedicated its entire spring issue to the play, with pieces written by Paul Clemens, Beryl Satter, Bill Savage, and Patricia and Fredrick McKissack, an interview between Norris and John Guare, an interview with an anonymous real estate broker, and more; you can pick up a copy at the Walter Kerr Theatre for a dollar or download it for free here.)