Theater review, "The Trip to Bountiful": A journey worth taking

Published 8:50 pm Wednesday, May 19, 2010

ACT Theatre’s production of “The Trip to Bountiful” is a gem of a journey.

The story is powerful and relevant, the acting is flawless, the scenic design superb, the directing first-class.

It’s a perfect show from start to finish. Frankly, there’s so much good drama here to see and hear and experience that you might want to make a return trip. And it’s all done in under two hours with no intermission.

The story by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Horton Foote takes place in Texas in 1953 in a three-room flat shared by Ludie Watts; his elderly mother, Carrie Watts; and Jessie Mae Watts, Ludie’s wife.

Each character has his or her own personal demons to deal with, but the driving force that throws them all into the blender together is Carrie’s need to return to her ancestral home of Bountiful.

Carrie, who has a heart condition (“Doctor said it would last as long as I needed it”), has tried to escape several times before, which has kept Ludie and Jessie Mae on high alert, resulting in tension as thick as shoe leather.

The unspoken ridiculousness of preventing Carrie from seeing her home is paramountly cruel, considering it’s a journey made easily in a car. But selfish, overpowering Jessie Mae wants to keep Carrie’s pension checks close to home, and weak Ludie goes meekly along with his wife’s demands.

These are all strong characters and, thank goodness, played by strong actors.

Marianne Owen gave a stunning performance as Carrie. She packed a punch when she needed to and somehow pleaded her case to go home without ever appearing pathetic.

When she reveals the tragic tidbits of her character’s life during the bus ride home, Owen helped reveal Carrie’s inner strength with a powerful mixture of humor and melancholy.

Mary Kae Irvin played Jessie Mae like a shrew in chiffon, just a she-devil in a hairdo whose humorous lines kept us from wanting to see her go straight to Hades.

Ludie is played by Paul Morgan Stetler, who brought out the tortured soul of this only son, torn between his own desire to forget, his wife’s demands and his mother’s only wish. “I want to stop remembering. It doesn’t do any good,” he says.

It’s at this point that the story rips your heart open.

But in the end, Carrie makes it home and finds what she’s really been looking for: her dignity.

As talented director Victor Pappas points out, “The Trip to Bountiful” teaches us how we must accept the life we have at the end of the day, not the life we wish for.

“And if you can accept that, you can find home wherever you are,” Pappas said in program notes.

Finding that out is so worth the ride. All aboard.

“The Trip to Bountiful”

7:30 p.m. Tuesdays through Thursdays and Sundays, 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays and 2 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays at ACT Theatre, 700 Union St., Seattle. Tickets start at $37.50. Call 206-292-7676 or go to www.acttheatre.org.