As the structurally old-fashioned Dividing the Estate played out, I thought about Ian McKellen’s King Lear at BAM—and not just because McKellen slackens the audience’s jaws by standing stark naked on the heath. At 91, playwright Horton Foote is older than Lear ever was, and in a far greater state of wisdom than McKellen’s humbled monarch. More important, there are intriguing parallels between Shakespeare’s story of an unwisely divided kingdom and the one Foote gently slides under the microscope.
Stella (fiery Elizabeth Ashley, after a weak start) is the matriarch of a Texas brood weaned on money and status; her middle-aged children Lucille (delicate Penny Fuller), Lewis (sullen Gerald McRaney) and Mary Jo (tempestuous, blank-faced Hallie Foote) are the type to luxuriate in family pleasantries, then angle for their fair share of the estate when momma kicks it. Mary Jo, married to bankrupt realtor Bob (James DeMarse), doesn’t even want to wait; deeply in debt to future inheritance, she wants it all divvied up now. Not only would trisecting the estate help them all avoid inheritance taxes—that’s Bob’s primary (if self-serving) rationale—but it would let their daughter Emily (air headed Jenny Dare Paulin) plan a new sojourn to Europe, and for second daughter Sissie (pissy Nicole Lowrance) to imagine a garish wedding.
The overall timing couldn’t be worse: It’s 1987, and Texas land values—and American farming—are in steep decline. It’s well nigh impossible for Lucille’s son (Devon Abner) to run the estate profitably for his grandmother; yet Stella, fading mentally, sentimentally wedded to the estate’s multigenerational past, flatly rules out a sale or a division. Still, Stella’s besieged—by Lucille, who wants the estate preserved; by Mary Jo, whose sense of entitlement wouldn’t be so funny were it not so outrageous; and by Lewis, a drunk and gambler not only in hock to his legacy, but being shaken down by the father of the high school girl he’s bedding.
If it seems all Stella’s children bear the DNA of Lear’s idiotic offspring—haughty Goneril, mordant Regan, virtuous Cordelia—that’s because they do. No wonder Son, whose father died in service to the rambling, 5,000-acre estate, aims to leave after marrying Pauline (Maggie Lacey), a schoolteacher with a penchant for spouting unpleasant truths with a resolutely chipper smile.
In another nod to Lear, Foote even conjures up a Fool: Doug (charismatic Arthur French), a 92-year-old black servant, who symbolizes the estate’s post-Reconstruction, Plessy vs. Ferguson pride. Unlike the estate’s other, younger black servants—brittle Mildred (Lynda Gravátt) and bright Cathleen (Keiana Richàrd), who care only for what’s in Stella’s will—Doug shares Stella’s taste for the atavistic comforts of yesterday. Doug and Stella’s death happen right after one another’s, naturally, and you can see it—like so many of the play’s elements—coming a mile away. Director Michael Wilson stages Dividing the Estate with finesse, but the production is more a master class in insightful, subtext-heavy acting than writing for the ages.
I know them’s fightin’ words, Foote fans—and yes, of course he remains one of our finest playwrights. As noted earlier, however, his chosen structure is what I’d call late-20th century traditional; it’s burdened by elastic expositional chatter and an ongoing tonal imbalance between the comic and tragic—the audience seemed perpetually oscillating between laughter, tears and spitting. They know Stella’s made a mess of her children’s lives and her children, through the selfishness inculcated in them, have made a mess of her fine, beloved estate. Unlike Lear, however, the results of both plays are not the same.
Through Oct. 27, Primary Stages at 59E59 Theaters, 59 E. 59th St. (betw. Park & Madison Aves.), 212-279-4200; $60.
Stella (fiery Elizabeth Ashley, after a weak start) is the matriarch of a Texas brood weaned on money and status; her middle-aged children Lucille (delicate Penny Fuller), Lewis (sullen Gerald McRaney) and Mary Jo (tempestuous, blank-faced Hallie Foote) are the type to luxuriate in family pleasantries, then angle for their fair share of the estate when momma kicks it. Mary Jo, married to bankrupt realtor Bob (James DeMarse), doesn’t even want to wait; deeply in debt to future inheritance, she wants it all divvied up now. Not only would trisecting the estate help them all avoid inheritance taxes—that’s Bob’s primary (if self-serving) rationale—but it would let their daughter Emily (air headed Jenny Dare Paulin) plan a new sojourn to Europe, and for second daughter Sissie (pissy Nicole Lowrance) to imagine a garish wedding.
The overall timing couldn’t be worse: It’s 1987, and Texas land values—and American farming—are in steep decline. It’s well nigh impossible for Lucille’s son (Devon Abner) to run the estate profitably for his grandmother; yet Stella, fading mentally, sentimentally wedded to the estate’s multigenerational past, flatly rules out a sale or a division. Still, Stella’s besieged—by Lucille, who wants the estate preserved; by Mary Jo, whose sense of entitlement wouldn’t be so funny were it not so outrageous; and by Lewis, a drunk and gambler not only in hock to his legacy, but being shaken down by the father of the high school girl he’s bedding.
If it seems all Stella’s children bear the DNA of Lear’s idiotic offspring—haughty Goneril, mordant Regan, virtuous Cordelia—that’s because they do. No wonder Son, whose father died in service to the rambling, 5,000-acre estate, aims to leave after marrying Pauline (Maggie Lacey), a schoolteacher with a penchant for spouting unpleasant truths with a resolutely chipper smile.
In another nod to Lear, Foote even conjures up a Fool: Doug (charismatic Arthur French), a 92-year-old black servant, who symbolizes the estate’s post-Reconstruction, Plessy vs. Ferguson pride. Unlike the estate’s other, younger black servants—brittle Mildred (Lynda Gravátt) and bright Cathleen (Keiana Richàrd), who care only for what’s in Stella’s will—Doug shares Stella’s taste for the atavistic comforts of yesterday. Doug and Stella’s death happen right after one another’s, naturally, and you can see it—like so many of the play’s elements—coming a mile away. Director Michael Wilson stages Dividing the Estate with finesse, but the production is more a master class in insightful, subtext-heavy acting than writing for the ages.
I know them’s fightin’ words, Foote fans—and yes, of course he remains one of our finest playwrights. As noted earlier, however, his chosen structure is what I’d call late-20th century traditional; it’s burdened by elastic expositional chatter and an ongoing tonal imbalance between the comic and tragic—the audience seemed perpetually oscillating between laughter, tears and spitting. They know Stella’s made a mess of her children’s lives and her children, through the selfishness inculcated in them, have made a mess of her fine, beloved estate. Unlike Lear, however, the results of both plays are not the same.
Through Oct. 27, Primary Stages at 59E59 Theaters, 59 E. 59th St. (betw. Park & Madison Aves.), 212-279-4200; $60.
