Caring About Characters

One critic wrote of Horton Foote's The Traveling Lady as "old fashioned."  True - compared to Dividing the Estate.  One place this shows is that, while characters in Estate are amusing and life-like, they feel more like performances.  I'm not quibbling actors' technique here (which was excellent) but a presentational quality written into the characters.  Whereas, even with comic exaggeration, characters in Traveling Lady are more life-sized somehow.  Much more sympathetic.  In an age of anti-heroes and cynicism, that makes them very old fashioned indeed!

Proof?  Days after seeing Traveling Lady, my theater companion asked whether, in the 1950s, a respectable lady would go off in a car with a man (the kindly Slim) she'd only known a few days.  We discussed this, deciding that, yes, in Georgette's dire circumstances she would.  Her young daughter would seem a respectable enough chaperon.  We bet Slim would work and save to help pay for Georgette's divorce and they'd marry as soon as the decree arrived.  I think they'll be happy.  Meanwhile, I hope Sitter Mavis doesn't regret not learning to dance too often and that Mr Tillman is speaking to his wife again.

Think anyone left the theater after Estate worrying whether the family's oil well comes in?

Another Not-A-Review

Dividing the Estate at the Dallas Theater Center.  I'm beginning to be glad that I'll never invite Horton Foote to a family picnic - no telling what he'd notice.  What a very observant and quietly, wickedly, funny play Dividing the Estate is.  This cast does well by these characters.  Two I particularly enjoyed: the actress who played the sister who wants the money now! and Mathew Gray's only-sane-man-in-the-room.

Of course, it's the set I come to see.  (Kiddin', kiddin'.)  This one, designed by John Arnone, is straightforward.  A row of tall, classical columns, echoed by matching pilasters further upstage with doors and windows between them on the transparent wall, mark a raised entry hall.  Downstage, in thrust, is a dining room platform with a long table and chandelier, thrust still further downstage is the living room.  Upstage of the hall we see a small curved entry court, dangling leaves of weeping willows, and a sky cyc.  Simple, nicely done.

Now, I'm picky, but this is a Tony winning Broadway designer, visiting at SMU, so his design will stand up to a picky question.  Why deliberately flatten the columns?  Detailing made it clear this was a design choice.  Why not make the capitals 3D, since, of course, they were 3D.  Before the show I guessed some metaphor about characters presenting "facades"... but that didn't make sense watching the play.  To point out the artificiality of this as a "set" not a real place?  Puzzling.  Likewise unrealistically-wide painted floor boards - also to underline set-ishness?  I didn't like the spindle-baluster railings each side of the set, but that's a pet peeve of mine.  Hate 'em in real life.  Too widely spaced on-stage versions drive me completely nuts - I'd rather have no railings.

I found a link to Mr. Arnone's webpage.  I found his The Goat set especially interesting, as I've designed that show myself.  I hope I (and my fellow local designers) get a chance to meet this accomplished set designer now that he's in town.