Lots o' Horton Foote

Just saw Kitchen Dog's entry in the Horton Foote festival, Three Foote, three of his one act plays.

I hadn't realized that Blind Date was quite so funny.  The Man With One Arm was disturbing.  And The Man Who Climbed Pecan Trees ended much like Ibsen's Ghosts.  All well done.  Seeing the same actors in differing roles added something, I think - certainly reinforced the autobiographical mining for characters that, I'm told, Horton Foote often did...  For instance, a sort of "ghost" of his real-life drunken uncle appeared in the last play.  The women's roles also had recurring character types or perhaps recurring characteristics?

The set was interesting: wall hangings painted as bleak grey skies and gray landscapes populated by faces within the outlines of houses and a few skeletal trees.  In front of that, two suspended windows (with or without lace curtains) and as-needed furniture (all in warm tones) or a cotton bale.  Worked well.  The difficulty, of course, was to find something that would work in tone for all three plays...  The background was, I thought, a little bleak for the first play, Blind Date.  I wished some of the warm color of the floor had been pulled up into the bottom of the wall landscapes - which were perfect for the last play.