I have to be honest, the only reason I wanted to see Harris Yulin’s re-staging of his acclaimed off-Broadway production of Horton Foote’s The Trip to Bountiful at the Goodman is to see Lois Smith tackle the complex, touching lead role of Carrie Watts, the role that snagged the legendary Geraldine Page a much-deserved, long-overdue Oscar in 1986. I found the movie version of Bountiful to be quite the snoozer, like a game of canasta at an Arizona retirement community, with Page the one single, memorable element. The production currently running at the Goodman, although admittedly very well-done with exceptional acting all-around, does not change my opinion of the piece. I think the play, despite the admirable simplicity of its language, is really not that exemplary. It’s an old person’s play- full of wistfulness and slow rhythms. Or maybe I’m just not a Horton Foote kind of guy. But boy, does Lois Smith elevate this material to a magnificent, dynamic, electrifying night at the theater. It is a master class in acting (and she deservedly won an Obie for the off-Broadway production) - her Carrie Watts is a complicated, flesh and blood creation: stubborn and temperamental one minute; excitedly wide-eyed and generous the next. Throughout her journey from Houston, cooped up with her combative daughter-in-law in a small apartment to her bus trip with a young soldier’s wife to her arrival at the run-down family home in the nearly-obliterated Bountiful, she draws us beautifully into Carrie’s soul and makes us clearly understand her one all-consuming passion: the painfully basic human need to come home. She does this by giving us a ferocious performance- her Carrie is fierce, determined, a clear-eyed fighter (I was struck by the contrast with Page’s interpretation, which felt to me, watching the movie all those years ago, to be more about making peace with one’s life before one dies). There is no performance as satisfying, as wow-inducing, as emotionally-connected with the audience (except perhaps for the guys of A Steady Rain) on Chicago stages right now as Lois Smith’s tour de force at the Goodman. Sometimes, canasta games, depending on the players, pay off big-time.
Over the weekend, I also caught a preview performance of Neil LaBute’s In a Dark, Dark House at Profiles Theatre. So I decided to be done with Profiles and LaBute after having to sit through with gritted teeth and clenched jaw, the juvenile, horrendously misogynistic, mean-spirited Fat Pig almost two years ago. Well, I wanted to see the really interesting actor Hans Fleischmann again (who was very memorable in Red Orchid’s Blasted last year) so I thought I’d break my boycott and sit through another one of Darrell W. Cox’s (the erstwhile Profiles Theater leading man, and Associate Artistic Director) unmodulated (to put it kindly) performance and LaBute’s vicious bile once again. Well, I was glad I did (despite the fact that even though there were plenty of empty seats at the theater, this burly, hairy Teamster in – I have just fainted and needed to be revived with my copy of the Eric Bana GQ cover- a tank top, decided to sit right beside me…I’m sorry, but Neil LaBute and massive, exposed, hairy armpits in close proximity to your five senses do not mix!!!!). Since the play is still in previews, I won’t be saying much more about it for now. Wait for my blogpost soon, but I think Profiles Theater will be back on my radar!
The Trip to Bountiful has been extended until April 13 at the Goodman Theatre, 170 N. Dearborn St. Get your tickets before the extension sells out again- this is theatrical magic at its finest. I, on the other hand, will be getting a spare Pashmina shawl to bring with me to future theater outings – I don’t want to risk getting another close (literally, close) encounter with a football-player sized sasquatch of a tank top wearer!
Recent Comments