"Dividing The Estate" is Wholly Entertaining

If Leo Tolstoy were alive today and going to theater in New York this season, he might rethink his famous edict that "every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." I don't know if it's a reflection of the shaky stock market or the fact that the parents of baby boomers are dying but in play after play over the past few weeks, families have been unhappy about one thing: their patrimony. There are the sisters squabbling over the rare stamps their mother left behind in Mauritius. And there are the Russian aristocrats in Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard and the coffee-growing clan in The Coffee Trees, Arthur Giron's Guatemala-based homage to Chekhov, all lamenting the fates of their once-grand legacies in the Resonance Ensemble productions currently playing in repertory at the Beckett Theatre. But, without a doubt, the best of these battling broods are the Gordons in Horton Foote's thoroughly entertaining Dividing the Estate.

Part of what makes the misery of the Gordons such a delight is the show's impeccable cast. Elizabeth Ashley, scarcely older than the actors who play her children, makes a marvelous matriarch and underplays her trademark smoldering sensuality just enough to make you realize what a vital force this woman was, and is. Hallie Foote, the playwright's daughter and renowned as one of his best interpreters, is a hoot as the youngest and greediest of the three adult children, all dependent on handouts from their cash-poor but land-rich mother. Gerald McRaney, best known for his work in several TV series, is totally comfortable on stage and totally believable as the middle-aged ne'er do well who as the only son will always be the apple of his doting mama's eye. And Arthur French as the family's ancient servant was so laugh-out-loud funny that my husband K started chuckling each time he just walked on stage.

But as wonderful as the performances are, it is the rich verisimilitude of the characters and the well crafted play in which they exist that make the evening at Primary Stages' 59E59 Theater such an enjoyable one. Horton Foote, now 91, had his first full-length play produced in 1941, was one of the founding fathers of TV drama in the Golden Age of Television in the '50s, and had his first hit screenplay, the Oscar-winning adaptation of "To Kill a Mockingbird," in 1962. Over the years he has won a Pulitzer Prize, two Academy Awards, a couple of Emmys and the National Medal of Arts. So it would be ridiculous to call him unsung as a writer. And yet, I confess that until the last few years, his name only rang a vague bell with me. But it wasn't just me. Foote has written some 60 plays over his career and only five of them have been produced on Broadway; the longest run was the 10 weeks for the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Young Man From Atlanta back in 1997. The Signature Theatre Company offered some recompense when it dedicated its 2005-2006 season to his work but, of course, that happened when he was 90.

I don't know why more attention has not been properly paid to Foote here in the capital of the theater world. Maybe we city folks just don't appreciate that so much of his work has revolved around the fictional Texas town of Harrison (the stand-in for the small town where he grew up). Or maybe it's that we like our playwrights to be as dramatic offstage as on—like Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, Lillian Hellman and William Inge— while Foote stayed married to the same woman for nearly 50 years and kept his politics largely to himself. Whatever the reason, this production, which is scheduled to play just until Oct. 27, is reason alone to show me the error of my ways.

Foote was in the audience the night my husband K and I saw Dividing the Estate. Sitting ramrod straight in a seat at the back of the theater, nodding graciously to audience members who, recognizing him, went over to shake his hand and say a few words of thanks. Maybe Tolstoy had it right after all. One way to distinguish an unhappy family is to do what Foote does: treat it with love and respect.

"Mauritius" and Women on Broadway

Let me get this part out of the way first: Mauritius didn't work for me.
The chance to see its cast—F. Murray Abraham, Bobby Cannavale, Dylan Baker, Katie Finneran and ingénue-of-the-moment Alison Pill—would have been enough to get me into the Biltmore Theatre. But this time, it was the play itself that was the main lure. For it is the eagerly awaited Broadway debut of playwright Theresa Rebeck, a writer and producer of TV shows like "NYPD Blue" and "Law and Order: Criminal Intent," who over the past decade has laid siege to the stage with a barrage of works that includes Bad Dates, The Scene, The Water's Edge and the Pulitzer-Prize finalist Omnium Gatherum (which she co-wrote with Alexandra Gersten-Vassilaros).

Somehow, I didn't see any of them. But I heard enough about them to make me sorry that I hadn't and determined not to miss this one. Mauritius tells a Mamet-like tale about the shady dealings and double-dealings surrounding a rare stamp collection haggled over by two half-sisters and lusted after by a trio of unscrupulous dealers and collectors. The title comes from the island in the Indian Ocean that is the provenance of a pair of exceedingly rare and lucrative stamps. The premise isn't bad and I actually enjoyed learning all the philatelic lore that Rebeck sprinkled throughout the text. But what she didn't do was fully develop the characters, create a plausible plot or make a point that would stick with you longer than it takes to walk to the corner after the show lets out.

This doesn't mean there aren't entertaining moments. The dialogue is often witty; the talented cast brings energy to the piece, particularly the ingratiating Cannavale; and John Lee Beatty's transforming set is almost a show by itself. And it also doesn't mean that I won't be just as eager to see what Rebeck does next. If someone who has done so well in the big-money world of Hollywood is dedicated enough to keep writing for the stage, then it's almost my duty to support her. Besides, as the New York Times has noted repeatedly, Mauritius is the only play by a woman on Broadway this season. And that's a shame. It would be a bigger one if this stumble kept Rebeck or her sister playwrights from getting a larger toehold on the Great White Way. For as quiet as it's kept, Broadway—particularly behind the scenes—remains largely a boy's club.

Over the years, it's been rare for more than one or two women at a time to be invited into the playhouse. Susan Glaspell was the go-to-gal in the 1920s and '30s. Lillian Hellman settled in during the '40s and '50s. Wendy Wasserstein held the spot from the late '80s until her premature death last year. There were always other women writing and a few—Clare Boothe Luce, Mary Chase, Jean Kerr, Lorraine Hansberry, Beth Henley, Marsha Norman—were produced on Broadway. But most have had to do their thing in the more open-air playgrounds of off-Broadway and regional theater. It's telling that Caryl Churchill's 1982 classic Top Girls will only make its Broadway debut next spring. I know it's been hard for any playwright to get a Broadway production in recent years but you'd think that someone would have given Paula Vogel, Lynn Nottage and Rebecca Gilman a shot by now.

After the show, my husband K and I walked over to Joe Allen, one of our favorite theater hangouts. We had our usual—the chicken sandwich for him, the meatloaf on sourdough for me—and, as always, talked about the posters of famous Broadway flops that decorate its wall. Mauritius won’t end up there. But it wouldn't bother me to see a few more works by women on that wall. After all, sometimes even the best players strike out but at least they got into the game.