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About Last Night

Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City

TT: Toward eternity

April 24, 2013 by Terry Teachout

In today’s Wall Street Journal I hail the opening of the Broadway revival of The Trip to Bountiful. Here’s an excerpt.
* * *
tripopen200.jpgHorton Foote’s “The Trip to Bountiful” is one of the half-dozen greatest American plays, yet its greatness has yet to be generally acknowledged. The reasons why aren’t hard to grasp. Like all of Mr. Foote’s plays, it’s a soft-spoken character study, the tale of a tired old woman from Texas who hasn’t seen her home town in 20 years, longs to do so once more before she dies and decides one day to go there. Nothing else happens, nor do the characters say anything especially memorable. They merely show you how ordinary people live their lives. The poetry–and “The Trip to Bountiful” is profoundly poetic–is between the lines. Yet no one with a receptive soul can fail to appreciate the play’s myriad beauties, and Michael Wilson’s new revival, in which Cicely Tyson returns to Broadway for the first time since 1983, is unforgettably excellent. I’ve never been more deeply moved by a theatrical production of any kind….
Ms. Tyson is, of course, the star of the show, but she never indulges in the kind of notice-me exaggeration to which “stars” too often stoop. Indeed, what is most striking about her performance is its total lack of sentimentality. She speaks her lines in a cracked, vinegary old-lady voice in which no trace of self-pity can be heard, trusting to Mr. Foote to do the rest. If you’ve ever felt the fear of watching an increasingly frail parent try to keep on living her life the way she always has…well, you’ll feel it all over again as you watch Ms. Tyson on the stage of the Stephen Sondheim Theatre. That’s the measure of the truth of her acting.
Part of what makes this production so fine is the unanimity with which Ms. Tyson’s colleagues support her magnificent performance….
Most of the parts in this production of “The Trip to Bountiful,” which takes place in Texas circa 1953, are played by black actors. “Non-traditional” casting, as it’s known in the theater business, can be both gratuitous and distracting, but at its best it’s capable of shedding fresh light on a familiar play. It works wonderfully well here, in part because it’s never stressed….
* * *
Read the whole thing here.

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Terry Teachout

Terry Teachout, who writes this blog, is the drama critic of The Wall Street Journal and the critic-at-large of Commentary. In addition to his Wall Street Journal drama column and his monthly essays … [Read More...]

About

About “About Last Night”

This is a blog about the arts in New York City and the rest of America, written by Terry Teachout. Terry is a critic, biographer, playwright, director, librettist, recovering musician, and inveterate blogger. In addition to theater, he writes here and elsewhere about all of the other arts--books, … [Read More...]

About My Plays and Opera Libretti

Billy and Me, my second play, received its world premiere on December 8, 2017, at Palm Beach Dramaworks in West Palm Beach, Fla. Satchmo at the Waldorf, my first play, closed off Broadway at the Westside Theatre on June 29, 2014, after 18 previews and 136 performances. That production was directed … [Read More...]

About My Podcast

Peter Marks, Elisabeth Vincentelli, and I are the panelists on “Three on the Aisle,” a bimonthly podcast from New York about theater in America. … [Read More...]

About My Books

My latest book is Duke: A Life of Duke Ellington, published in 2013 by Gotham Books in the U.S. and the Robson Press in England and now available in paperback. I have also written biographies of Louis Armstrong, George Balanchine, and H.L. Mencken, as well as a volume of my collected essays called A … [Read More...]

The Long Goodbye

To read all three installments of "The Long Goodbye," a multi-part posting about the experience of watching a parent die, go here. … [Read More...]

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