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‘Carpetbagger’s Children’ is storytelling at its best
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Reviewed by: FRAN HELLER Contributing Writer
If you like a good story, you’ll enjoy “The Carpetbagger’s Children.”
Written in 2002 by master playwright Horton Foote when he was 86, the drama revolves around three sisters who relive their family’s history in an era spanning post-Civil War Reconstruction to the present. The Ensemble Theatre production is at The Cleveland Play House through June 29.
The play, tenderly directed by Lucia Colombi, captures the understated elegance of Foote’s lyrical prose. The intimacy of the performance space at Studio One provides the perfect cocoon for this three-person show.
The story is set in Harrison, Texas, where the sisters’ father, the eponymous carpetbagger, was a former Union soldier, who returned to the South after the Civil War, amassing huge tracts of land and fortune through somewhat questionable means. Keeping the land in family hands is the central issue for his daughters: Cornelia (Hester Lewellen), Grace Anne (Lissy Gulick) and Sissy (Mary Jane Nottage). With echoes of Chekhov’s The Three Sisters, Rashomon, and Shakespeare’s King Lear, the play deals with issues of home, family, identity and the inexorable tug of change.
The drama is constructed as three monologues, with little interaction between the onstage characters. The beauty of this lovely gem lies in its poetry and in sharply etched details that summon such a keen sense of time and place. Through the main characters, countless others come alive.
The narrative ripples with gentle humor and a strong undercurrent of sadness. Well-balanced portrayals capture both.
The performances are flawless; the genteel Southern accents, utterly natural, and their monologues, like music in which each actress beautifully captures the rhythms and cadences of the language n no small feat in this 90-minute theater piece presented without intermission.
In addition to her main character, each actor is able to throw her voice sufficiently to assume other unseen characters. There is the stern Papa, whose injunction against marriage and dividing the estate becomes a heavy burden for his children to bear.
Other unseen characters include the sisters’ Mama, whose long life is clouded by dementia; their feckless Brother, who never had a head for business; and an assortment of respectable and not-so-respectable gentlemen callers.
Stoic Hester Lewellen suits the role of the smart and responsible Cornelia. The task of preserving the estate falls upon her after Beth, the eldest daughter, dies young. Mary Jane Nottage is perfect as the sweetly innocent Sissy, the baby of the family, who never quite outgrows childhood, even after marriage. Sissy is known for her singing, and her recurring song “O, the clanging bells of time” becomes an elegy of loss.
Handsome Lissy Gulick is outstanding as the feisty Grace Anne, rebel and family pariah, who ran off and eloped and was forever banned from returning home while her father was alive.
Martin Cosentino sets the stage with a trio of assorted desks and domestic furnishings. In the center is a small console table filled with family photographs that exert a pull on the sisters, like spokes of a wheel.
Cory Molner’s warm lighting bathes each speaker in an ethereal glow. Corby Grubb’s sound design summons the passage of time as horse-drawn wagons are replaced by automobiles.
Pulitzer Prize winner Foote proves himself a master of the monologue in this play, joining the ranks of Conor McPherson and Brian Friel. That Mr. Foote at 91 is still writing makes this small masterpiece even more astounding.
“The Carpetbagger’s Children” requires careful listening and close attention. The rewards for doing so are many.
If you like a good story, you’ll enjoy “The Carpetbagger’s Children.”
Written in 2002 by master playwright Horton Foote when he was 86, the drama revolves around three sisters who relive their family’s history in an era spanning post-Civil War Reconstruction to the present. The Ensemble Theatre production is at The Cleveland Play House through June 29.
The play, tenderly directed by Lucia Colombi, captures the understated elegance of Foote’s lyrical prose. The intimacy of the performance space at Studio One provides the perfect cocoon for this three-person show.
The story is set in Harrison, Texas, where the sisters’ father, the eponymous carpetbagger, was a former Union soldier, who returned to the South after the Civil War, amassing huge tracts of land and fortune through somewhat questionable means. Keeping the land in family hands is the central issue for his daughters: Cornelia (Hester Lewellen), Grace Anne (Lissy Gulick) and Sissy (Mary Jane Nottage). With echoes of Chekhov’s The Three Sisters, Rashomon, and Shakespeare’s King Lear, the play deals with issues of home, family, identity and the inexorable tug of change.
The drama is constructed as three monologues, with little interaction between the onstage characters. The beauty of this lovely gem lies in its poetry and in sharply etched details that summon such a keen sense of time and place. Through the main characters, countless others come alive.
The narrative ripples with gentle humor and a strong undercurrent of sadness. Well-balanced portrayals capture both.
The performances are flawless; the genteel Southern accents, utterly natural, and their monologues, like music in which each actress beautifully captures the rhythms and cadences of the language n no small feat in this 90-minute theater piece presented without intermission.
In addition to her main character, each actor is able to throw her voice sufficiently to assume other unseen characters. There is the stern Papa, whose injunction against marriage and dividing the estate becomes a heavy burden for his children to bear.
Other unseen characters include the sisters’ Mama, whose long life is clouded by dementia; their feckless Brother, who never had a head for business; and an assortment of respectable and not-so-respectable gentlemen callers.
Stoic Hester Lewellen suits the role of the smart and responsible Cornelia. The task of preserving the estate falls upon her after Beth, the eldest daughter, dies young. Mary Jane Nottage is perfect as the sweetly innocent Sissy, the baby of the family, who never quite outgrows childhood, even after marriage. Sissy is known for her singing, and her recurring song “O, the clanging bells of time” becomes an elegy of loss.
Handsome Lissy Gulick is outstanding as the feisty Grace Anne, rebel and family pariah, who ran off and eloped and was forever banned from returning home while her father was alive.
Martin Cosentino sets the stage with a trio of assorted desks and domestic furnishings. In the center is a small console table filled with family photographs that exert a pull on the sisters, like spokes of a wheel.
Cory Molner’s warm lighting bathes each speaker in an ethereal glow. Corby Grubb’s sound design summons the passage of time as horse-drawn wagons are replaced by automobiles.
Pulitzer Prize winner Foote proves himself a master of the monologue in this play, joining the ranks of Conor McPherson and Brian Friel. That Mr. Foote at 91 is still writing makes this small masterpiece even more astounding.
“The Carpetbagger’s Children” requires careful listening and close attention. The rewards for doing so are many.
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