Days To Come

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In explaining the failure of her second play, which closed after barely a week on Broadway in 1936, Lillian Hellman commented: “I wanted to say too much.” That pretty much sums up the play’s shortcomings, as revealed in a revival by Mint Theater Company on Theater Row. We meet Andrew Rodman (Larry Bull; The Coast of Utopia), the well-meaning but ineffectual owner of a brush factory in a a small Ohio town, his restless unfulfilled wife Julie (Janie Brookshire; The Moundbuilders), his embittered spinster sister Cora (Mary Bacon; The Roads to Home), the domineering family attorney Henry Ellicott (Ted Deasy), the outspoken longtime family cook Hannah (Kim Martin-Cotten; Time and the Conways) and the maid Lucy (Betsy Hogg). When the factory workers go on strike, the union sends in organizer Leo Whalen (Roderick Hill) to advise their leader, Andrew’s friend since childhood Thomas Firth (the barely audible Chris Henry Coffey). Henry persuades the naive Andrew to bring in strikebreakers led by Sam Wilkie (Dan Daily; The Dining Room) and his henchmen Mossie Dowel (Geoffrey Allen Murphy; The Nance) and Joe Easter (Evan Zes; Incident at Vichy). With eleven characters competing for our attention, there is little opportunity for any of them to strike more than one note. There is more speechifying than conversation. It is difficult to ascertain where the focus of the play lies. The significance of the title escapes me. The level of the acting is not up to the Mint’s usual standard. The attractive period set by Harry Feiner (The Traveling Lady) includes a stool that creaks so loudly that it competes with the actor atop it. The costumes by Andrea Varga (The Suitcase under the Bed) include a dress for Julie with an aggressively busy pattern that it is an assault on the eyes. J.R. Sullivan’s direction does not pull things together. It was far from a successful evening, but it was interesting to see the state of Hellman’s craft just before she wrote her great family drama The Little Foxes. Running time: two hours ten minutes, including intermission.

The Traveling Lady

C-

This revival of Horton Foote’s 1954 play now in previews at the Cherry Lane Theatre does not make a strong case for the play. As usual for Foote, the setting is the mythical Harrison, Texas in the 1950’s. Georgette Thomas (Jean Lichty), an attractive young woman, arrives in town with her five-year old daughter Margaret Rose (Korinne Tetlow), looking for a cheap house to rent. She is directed to Judge Robedaux (George Morfogen) who plies her for personal information. It turns out that her husband Henry (PJ Sosko) has been in prison for six years and has never met his daughter. She expects him to arrive in Harrison, where he grew up, within the week. She is startled to find out that Henry has already been in town for a month and is living with and working for Mrs. Tillman (Jill Tanner), a do-gooder who fancies herself able to cure alcoholics. While the neighbors try to locate her husband, Georgette and her daughter rest at the home of Clara Breedlove (Angelina Fiordellisi) and her brother Slim Murray (Larry Bull), a young widower. We learn that Siim’s allegedly beloved wife actually abandoned him and wouldn’t even let him visit her as she lay dying. We also meet Clara’s next-door neighbors, the crusty old Mrs. Mavis (Lynne Cohen) who wanders off every chance she gets and her hapless daughter Sitter (Karen Ziemba) [Really, where do Southerners come up with these awful names for their daughters!]. Will Henry stay sober? Will Margaret Rose get to meet her father? Will Slim find true love? Will Mrs. Tillman keep her faith in human nature? Will Georgette catch a break? I was not at the edge of my seat waiting to find out. While the ensemble is mostly good, Austin Pendleton’s  direction is flat. The set by Harry Feiner and costumes by Theresa Squire are adequate. The need for most of the actors to enter via the theater’s center aisle and up a few stairs grows tiresome quickly. While it’s always a pleasure to see Karen Ziemba, she is wasted in a nondescript supporting role. In the short-lived 1954 Broadway production, the title role was played by Kim Stanley. Perhaps someone with her charisma is needed to breathe life into this play. Unless you are a fanatic Foote fan, you can skip this one. Running time: one hour 40 minutes, no intermission