Dividing the Estate
is perhaps as relevant for today's self-centered, materially obsessed culture as
it was when it was written in the 1980s. It is a timeless tale of a vanishing way of
life, old money being consumed by the expenses of maintaining an estate whose inhabitants
do no work and where once bustling towns have become ghost towns because of
urban sprawl and a severe economic recession. The real estate bust of the late
1980's was particularly hard on Texas and this play takes place in Horton
Foot's mythical town of Harrison, Texas (where many of his plays are set). But the
play is also about loyalty and devotion, the playwright empathetically
portraying his characters in spite of their weaknesses. And it is a play that puts a smile on one's
face with its humor, even with abundant heartrending overtones.
In fact, the play's Director -- also the Producing Artistic
Director of Dramaworks, who selects the plays and does the casting, Bill Hayes
-- purposely chose this work for its timeliness: "I know so many people where money is
dividing the family. There is a sense of
entitlement to their parent's money, and by picking this play we're trying to
say something to the community."
The Texas Gordon clan is divided, torn by feelings of
entitlement, jealousy, rapaciousness and the hint that behind every fortune is
a great crime. This is family, sometimes
at its worse, and sometimes at its best. The family gyroscope is its matriarch,
Stella, all the characters spinning around her in one way or another and her
control is absolute, sometimes exercised as a benign dictator to her children
and sometimes lovingly, particularly to her 92 year old black servant, Doug,
who has been with the family since he was five.
In fact Stella and Doug basically grew up together, so it is no wonder
that Stella seems so devoted. He is indeed a surrogate family member. The other
servants, Mildred and Cathleen also interact with the family, and these
"downstairs" characters have their own dynamic interplay.
Shades of Chekov's The
Cherry Orchard reverberate in the play, family coming together over an
estate, a subtle drama with the sorrows and desires of ordinary people
inextricably culminating in a denouement the audience can feel coming, and yet
the characters are left dazed, staring blankly at the audience as the lights
fade. The exception is the one realist
in the group, interestingly known as "Son," actually Stella's
grandson, the only person in the family with some college education, who
manages the estate, dolls out "advances" to his alcoholic and
philandering Uncle Lewis and the demanding and avaricious Aunt Mary Jo on their
shares of the estate. Son's own mother, Lucille, is Stella's "good"
child, the perfect foil for the others.
Son fully knows what financial shambles the estate is in. Although the signs of decay in their Texas
town are omnipresent as well, to varyingly degrees the characters delusionally
pin their hopes on a financial reversal from leasing their land for oil
exploration.
There are hints that the sins of Stella's long dead husband and
her progenitors shadow the family. Stella says to Lucille. "Your father was
a sinner -- he fathered children all up and down this county, black and
white. I warned him he'd be struck down
right in his bed of iniquity, but he never was.
He died just as peaceful...," Lucille interrupting, saying "He
didn't die peaceful, Mama. He was in
great pain when he died." Stella
replies, "Well he was in his own bed being cared for by his family. I despised him, you know."
Another telling exchange is between Son, and the family,
regarding how the estate came into being, Stella in denial. Son remembers when he was a student a
classmate accused him of having "a
blue belly just like your Yankee great-grandfather" -- a carpetbagger. They go back and forth recounting the story,
Son always referring to his great grandfather, Stella always correcting him
saying great-great-grandfather, Son saying that "he stole land right and
left by destroying legal records in the courthouse" and Stella protesting
"He didn't steal the land. He didn't steal anything.... And my daddy told
me that his daddy told him that you could buy land here for a dollar-fifty an
acre, and people were abandoning their plantations because they couldn't make a
living on them without their slaves, and he saved his money and bought as much
land as he could, and that makes up our estate." One never knows the complete story, but
this exchange, which is as humorous as it is revealing, leads to the
inevitability of the unfolding drama.
And so this bewildered and torn southern family tries to
come to grips with its predicament. They've
been accustomed to a life on the dole and now the light of reality is at the
end of their fictive tunnel. The 5,000
acre estate is no longer productive, but a burden, taxes and expenses rising
while revenue diminishes.
This is a production well worth seeing, a play by one of our
most prolific playwrights having written more than fifty, Dividing the Estate being his last
one before he died at the age of 92. Horton Foote also adapted To Kill a Mockingbird for the screen for
which he won an Academy Award. A truly
remarkable playwright.
And while it is so often referred to as a "comedy"
these generally are not belly laughs, but rather, a chortle here and a titter
there as we recognize ourselves and members of our own families in Foote's
characters. As Hayes says: "You have to have the honesty before you find
the comedy."
According to Hayes, he purposely chose his cast mostly from actors
that have performed at Dramaworks before, or have worked together in other
venues as it was important for them to quickly develop a chemistry -- like a
real family. In fact, extensive readings
and discussions of the play among the cast preceded the technical blocking and
rehearsals even though there were only 3-1/2 weeks to bring the production
together. And, indeed, the cast coalesces
and you feel that this is family and although set in 1987, as relevant today.
Foote's regional Texas dialogue is lively, lots of give and
take between the actors, so the play moves at a good pace, and director Hayes
takes full advantage of the script, and the actors -- the largest cast
assembled to date at any Dramaworks production -- shine in their roles.
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(Back Row) (LtoR) Natalia Coego, Rob Donohoe, Gretchen
Porro, Leah Sessa, Gregg Weiner, Margery Lowe, Elizabeth Dimon, John Archie,
Avery Sommers, & Deltoiya Goodman
(Front Row) (LtoR) Kenneth Kay, Kim Cozort, & Mary Stout
photo credit : Alicia Donela
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These are all pros and it is hard to single out any one
performance. The interplay between
Stella (Mary Stout) and her very different (but dependent) children, Lewis (Rob
Donohoe), Mary Jo (Kim Cozort), and Lucille (Elizabeth Dimon), reveal well worn
hurts, and expectations. The
"help," Doug (John Archie), Mildred (Avery Sommers), and Cathleen
(Deltoiya Goodman) have their own
conflicts, and interaction with the family, many amusing, always touching. Bob (Kenneth Kay), Mary Jo's distraught husband, is now bankrupt, visiting from Houston with their two spoiled
generation X children, Emily (Gretchen Porro) and Sissie (Leah Sessa). Son (Gregg Weiner) is now engaged to Pauline
(Margery Lowe), a schoolteacher, who tries to introduce news of the world into
the family, with no success. And
finally, there is the teenager Irene (Natalia Coego), a waitress at the local
"Whataburger" who, with great hilarity is introduced by Lewis towards
the end of the play, as his beau. The
family jokes that soon they'll all be working at Whataburger until Pauline
chimes in, "That's what they say America is becoming, you know, a service
economy." Indeed, "you have to
have the honesty before you find the comedy."
We had a special treat weeks before the production, visiting
Dramaworks' 7,000 square foot shop where their scenery is designed, made,
assembled, and then eventually disassembled.
It starts with a model of the set, in this case an old fashioned living
room and dining room, with a stairway to the bedrooms, but well-kept, upscale,
one that hints at the past glory days of the Gordon estate. The model is to scale and then the set is
built to fit the stage. The scenic design by Jeff Modereger is a perfect
showcase.
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| The model set |
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| The model set from above |
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| The actual stage set |
The costume design is by Brian O'Keefe, and lighting design
by Ron Burns.
Dramaworks lovingly transforms Foote's work into memorable,
fun theatre.
