The Trip to Bountiful Reviews- Page 2

[WiCkEDrOcKS]

Posted: 4/28/13 at 12:08am

I saw BOUNTIFUL tonight and I have to add my voice to the camp of people who loved it! What a sweet, quietly moving gem of a play, given a very lovingly-mounted production. And to top it all off, one of the best performances of the season is at its center. Cicely Tyson is just as fantastic as everyone has made her performance out to be. Seeing her onstage was truly an honor as an audience member, and it was a theatergoing event I will never forget. She has such a warm, witty, inviting presence about her and she is absolutely giving her all to this part and this show. She was sensational in every sense of the word. The rest of the cast is wonderful, even if Cuba Gooding Jr. is the clear weak link, playing his character as annoying and pathetic more than anything else (in the first act, at least...which makes his breakdown in the second somewhat of a shrug).

I loved the simplicity of the production...you could tell the attention was to the text and the characters, first and foremost. The sets were quite lovely, but nothing extravagant. I was very moved by the end of the show. I'm glad to say this was one of the stronger productions I saw this season.

Now, a note on the audience behavior this evening. The laughter, I can happily report, was entirely appropriate. This isn't (at least it wasn't tonight) a retread of the extremely inappropriate audience reactions at the last STREETCAR revival, which ruined the experience for me. The audience responses to the show itself (laughing, clapping, etc) were all entirely appropriate and welcome. The issue I did have with the audience, however, were that people around me A) took their cellphones out for extended periods of time, playing on their phones and B) felt the need to talk to one another throughout, and not quietly at all. That bullsh*t needs to stop. It's completely unacceptable. After the deplorable behavior at MOTOWN, I thought nothing could top it, but tonight came close. People complaining out loud, at full volume that "they need to speed this up" and that they wished they were seeing MOTOWN again instead. I mean...seriously? Shut the hell up. And when anyone would shush them or ask them to be quiet, they wouldn't give a crap, make a face as if to say "you can't tell me what to do," and went on talking.

Thankfully, I thought this production was such a joy and Ms. Tyson was so exceptional that the audience behavior didn't detract too much from my experience. Updated On: 4/28/13 at 12:08 AM

[Bettyboy72]

Posted: 4/28/13 at 1:20am

This thread is racist.

[ArtMan]

Posted: 4/28/13 at 8:21am

Call it whatever you want. I'm seeing this Saturday. I didn't pay good money to have my experience ruined by ignorant people. I plan on finding the house manager, when I arrive, and tell him/her that I expect the staff to do their jobs in keeping the behavior in check. As I stated on here before, if a volunteer staff (which I am part of) can do it, then someone who receives a paycheck should do the same.

[aaronb]

Posted: 4/29/13 at 10:23pm

I hate cell phones at the theater.

"True, Bountiful is old-fashioned in its sensibility—a decidedly less saccharine How Green Was My Valley. Written originally as a TV movie with an all-white cast in 1953, this color-crossing adaptation could be stepping in questionable territory; where is the Klan, or the arch-conservative Governor Allan Shivers, who three years later, in response to Brown v. Board of Education, would encourage angry segregationist mobs who were burning three black-faced dummies in front of Mansfield High? Director Michael Wilson’s only acknowledgement of the situation seems to be an inconspicuously placed COLORED ONLY sign in a Greyhound bus station.

And yet, the result is somehow inoffensive; this is a white man’s fantasy of the South, but one that shouldn’t tread on too many toes. With gorgeous backdrops that evoke Edward Hopper’s America and with a cast of characters whose concerns are personal instead of political, the vicious, institutional racism of the era seems secondary to more universal problems. 'The passing of time makes me sad,' Mrs. Watts says early in the play. From her, this cliché becomes oddly poetic. Bountiful, emptied of all its former inhabitants, is itself a fantasy. 'Exit Ghost,' a Shakespearean stage direction that became the title of Philip Roth’s final Zuckerman novel, could very well apply here: running instead of walking, this athletic octogenarian is preparing for her next, even bigger trip."
My review of THE TRIP TO BOUNTIFUL