HF: These people represent a shift from the agricultural to the industrial. MW: Yes, that’s one of Horton’s classic themes, the move from the agrarian society, the agrarian South, to the more industrial South. The influx of oil made people so incredibly and immediately rich, which skewed people’s value systems. Sibyl represents a more genteel family that used to live there. Gertrude’s parents were that as well, but she’s been living with so much money for so long that it’s corrupted her. We’ve talked about how this play in many ways feels like a Tennessee Williams play, in terms of how outrageous and explosive these characters are. There’s also this kind of fractured, broken down dissonance that reminds me of an Albee play. Horton was very close with Tennessee, and he and Edward had great mutual admiration and respect for one another. It’s interesting that this play is set during the era of Virginia Woolf and Delicate Balance – there’s a groping and a searching at the end of the play that feels very Albee-esque to me.
Estelle Parsons and Horton Foote in rehearsal for The Last of the Thorntons, 2005.
A lot of times there’s a woman in Horton’s plays that has a kind of strength and resilience. But she’s not sentimental – she does the right thing.
Signature: What do you think Horton would have thought about this new chapter in Signature’s history? MW: What I love about Signature is that you’ve continued to reveal his greatness by doing productions of his plays. I think this play is yet another work that’s going to show the reach of Horton’s imagination and his vast contribution to the American theatre. We’re still just at the surface of understanding his dramaturgy and the plays that he created, the stories, the characters, his unique view of American life. That a small town can be a cage. HF: He would’ve loved the building and the lobby, the fact that audiences flood out from the various theaters into a central gathering spot like that. I think he would be so happy that the playwright is at the center of the experience, both for artists and for audiences. n
SIGNATURE THEATRE IS DELIGHTED TO WELCOME LOIS SMITH BACK TO THE CENTER,
with our current production of Horton Foote’s The Old Friends. Smith has a long, storied history with both Signature and Foote. She has starred in four Signature productions – The Trip to Bountiful, The Illusion, as well as this year’s Heartless and The Old Friends – and in five plays by Foote. Smith first collaborated with Foote in his play The Man Who Climbed the Pecan Trees in 1988 at Off Broadway’s Ensemble Studio Theatre, and later appeared in his play Land of the Astronauts. Following her acclaimed performance as Carrie Watts in Signature’s The Trip to Bountiful, Smith took over for Elizabeth Ashley in Hartford Stage’s production of Dividing the Estate. Her exceptional five-decade body of work was recently honored with both the Obie and Lilly Lifetime Achievement Awards.
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