“The Trip to Bountiful” on Broadway

The Trip to Bountiful is a play by Horton Foote. The play premiered March 1, 1953 on NBC-TV, before being produced on the Broadway stage. Its 1954 staging earned Jo Van Fleet a Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play at the 8th Tony Awards. The role of Carrie Watts won Geraldine Page the Academy Award for Best Actress for the film adaptation and Cicely Tyson the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play at the 67th Tony Awards for the 2013 Broadway production, which earned a total of 4 Tony Award nominations.
It premiered on Broadway at Henry Miller’s Theatre in November 1953 for a run of 39 performances. The play was produced Off-Broadway by the Signature Theatre Company at the Peter Norton Space in 2005. It was revived on Broadway at the Stephen Sondheim Theatre, opening in April 2013.

 

Vincent J. Donehue was the director of the NBC version, summer theatre preview versions, the 1953 Broadway version and the subsequent United States tour.The 2005 Off-Broadway production was directed by Harris Yulin. The 2013 Broadway revival was directed by Michael Wilson, with scenic design by Jeff Cowie, costumes by Van Broughton Ramsey and lighting by Rui Rita. The 2013 production marked Cicely Tyson’s first Broadway appearance since 1983. She was joined by Cuba Gooding, Jr., Condola Rashād and Vanessa Williams.The African-American cast is a non-issue because the themes are blind to race.

 

The play involves a “woman who has to live with a daughter-in-law who hates her and a son who does not dare take her side.”While the unhappy family lives in a Houston apartment, Carrie Watts dreams of returning to Bountiful, where she was raised. She eventually runs away and embarks by bus to her destination. She meets several people along the way and upon her arrival, she is wisked back to Houston by her son and daughter-in-law.

 

In order to prepare for her role in the 2013 Broadway revival, Tyson visited playwright Horton Foote’s home in rural Wharton, Texas.After viewing a matinee, Ben Brantley panned the production calling it a “generally sluggish production” that “only fitfully captures the rhythms of everyday melancholy that you associate with Foote” and noted several other resevations such as “This production allows too much dead air between lines…The show lacks the deceptively easy conversational flow” its director has previously demonstrated. He also notes that the show “often undercuts itself by broadening comic moments”.Regarding Ms. Tyson’s character singing hymns to herself during the production, Terry Teachout commented that during numerous performances, “a fair number of people in the theater sang along with her. It didn’t look to me as though she was trying to encourage them, either: They just joined in…” and that a friend told him, “Three women sitting next to me started singing along, softly at first, and by the second hymn a good part of the audience was joyously singing with them. The theater was everyone’s church that night, not just mine. To describe it sounds hokey, but it was anything but.”

 

Leon Addison Brown and Vanessa L Williams Carry Cicely Tyson off the stage at the end of the curtain calls ….

The Broadway production was recognized with Drama League Award nominations for Outstanding Revival of a Broadway or Off-Broadway Play and with Distinguished Performance Award nominations for both Cicely Tyson and Vanessa L. Williams. The production received four Outer Critics Circle Award nominations: Outstanding Revival of a Play (Broadway or Off-Broadway), Outstanding Director of a Play (Michael Wilson), Outstanding Actress in a Play (Cicely Tyson) and Outstanding Featured Actress in a Play (Vanessa L. Williams), with Tyson winning. The play earned three 58th Drama Desk Award nominations, with Tyson winning for Outstanding Actress in a Play. The play received four Tony Award nominations for the 67th Tony Awards, winning Best Actress in a Play.

 

Cast change Cuba Gooding Jr. departed 27 Aug 2013after the play was extended replaced by His understudy, Leon Addison Brown, assumed the role of ‘Ludie Watts’ from 28 Aug 2013.
The Trip to Bountiful is playing an extended engagement through to 09 Oct 2013. Stephen Sondheim Theatre.