|
|
 |
 'Cousins' Isn't The Deepest Play Live Theatre Workshop Has Tackled, But It's A Load Of Fun. By Dave Irwin YOU CAN CHOOSE your friends, but you can't choose your relatives--so goes the bittersweet message in Horton Foote's endearing Cousins. Of course, in Foote's small town, everyone's related through complex webs of kinship, so everyone's pretty much stuck with one another. The good news is you're never alone. The bad news is you're never alone. Directed by Live Theatre Workshop's James Mitchell Gooden as the final work of this season, Cousins takes some time before we develop affection for the hopelessly close-knit extended Robedaux/Thornton clan. Part of a nine-play cycle Foote calls "The Orphan's Home," Cousins is set in 1925. The action ostensibly centers on Horace Robedaux (Richard Ivey), an economically marginal shop owner in the family epicenter of Harrison, Texas. Horace, however, actually has relatively (pardon the pun) few lines and most of the play takes place in a hospital in Houston, where various relations have gathered pending a vague life-saving operation for Horace's mother.
The clucking assembly includes Horace's loving wife Elizabeth (Monica Kester), his ailing mother Corella (Ruth Baron), his vain sister Lily Dale (Jennifer Williams), Lily Dale's husband Will (Bruce Bieszki), husband and wife Monty and Lola (Michael Kirwin and Daryl Spruance; whose characters are both cousins to Horace and Lily Dale), Elizabeth's quiet father Henry (Phil O'Hern) and Horace's mother's second husband Pete (Mitch Etter). Back in Harrison, we also meet Horace's inept clerk, cousin Gordon (James Wilson) and second-cousin town drunkard Lewis (Stephen Elton). There are cameos by yet another cousin, Minnie (Kristi Loera), Corella's nurse (Heidi Borzek) and a black farmer named Sylvester (Fox Felton). Though we never see him, we hear a great deal about Elizabeth's brother Vaughn. LTW thoughtfully includes a cursory family tree in the program.
In the final scene, we're back at Harrison where we finally meet cousin Minnie, who declares that the goofy family is a bunch of frivolous fools (applause). The play ends with Lewis again displaying his tenuous grasp of reality as he is politely tolerated by Horace and Elizabeth. Despite being an alcoholic and a murderer, he is, after all, family. Cousins is neither deep drama nor sidesplitting comedy. It does, however, have some very funny moments and is certainly more insightful than a parlor comedy. The acting ranges from good to excellent, though several of the minor characters feel extraneous. Gooden clearly has a sense of homage for Foote, who wrote the screenplay for To Kill A Mockingbird and won the Pulitzer Prize for Young Man From Atlanta. While not as compelling as some other LTW works, there's absolutely no reason to not go and meet this wacky family for yourself.
Cousins, directed by James Mitchell Gooden, continues
through July 3 at Live Theatre Workshop, 5317 E. Speedway
Blvd. Show times are 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, and 3 p.m.
Sunday. Tickets are $10 general admission, with a $1 discount
for seniors and students. For information and reservations, call
327-4242.
|
 |
Home | Currents | City Week | Music | Review | Books | Cinema | Back Page | Archives
|
 |
© 1995-99 Tucson Weekly . Info Booth |
|
Harrison and the subject of family origins are never far from
this consanguineous crowds' hearts or conversation, as they gossip
and brag. The joke is that the longer they talk, the more they
travel the same territory over and over again, like a steam train
with only five miles of track.
The play opens in Horace's shop, where loquacious but content-free
Gordon babbles on to Horace's annoyance. Lewis wanders in, sloshed
and ready for a fight (he killed cousin Jimmy Dale in a drunken
knife fight, as we will hear multiple times), creating both tension
and comic relief. From there we move to Houston, where in addition
to fueling Lily Dale's sense of sibling rivalry, we learn (again
repeatedly) about Corella's murky feud with cousin Minnie, and
most importantly, Horace's Big Mistake of not investing $500 (a
fortune in 1925) in loudmouthed Will's wildcat oil scheme which,
the universe being what it is, paid off handsomely so as to make
Will rich and Horace struggle.
