Theater: The Trip to Bountiful and Cicely Tyson Are Tony Favorites

THE TRIP TO BOUNTIFUL ***
STEPHEN SONDHEIM THEATRE

The Tony nominations have just been announced. (Go here for a complete list of nominees. ) If you've seen the new Broadway revival of The Trip To Bountiful, you'll be happily surprised to see the voters got it right. They nominated the show for best revival; John Gromada for his strong, subtle sound design; and smartly singled out Condola Rashad (who has been good in everything I've seen her in) for her sparkling turn as a young woman traveling on a bus back home to her family. However, you won't be surprised that Cicely Tyson was nominated for her return to Broadway after 30 years away. The moment she walks on the stage, Tyson owns it; to me, she's the front runner for Leading Actress In A Play, with Kristine Nielsen's even better, show-stopping turn in Vanya And Sonia And Masha And Spike her strongest competition.

Like all of Horton Foote's work, the pleasures of The Trip To Bountiful (which began as a TV movie, transferred to Broadway with much the same cast and later became an Oscar-winning feature film) simply deepen and grow with the years. It won't surprise me a bit if 50 or 100 years from now the two playwrights that loom largest from this era are August Wilson and Horton Foote. Wilson serves up pyrotechnics and juicy, scene-stealing monologues while Foote traffics in quiet, gentle moments. But both are deeply rooted in their very respective worlds and both write characters actors love to play.

In this case, Tyson is playing Carrie Watts, an elderly woman living with her son Ludie (Cuba Gooding Jr.) and Jessie Mae his vain, difficult bride (Vanessa Williams). They're crowded together in a tiny apartment and living paycheck to paycheck. (Ludie was sick for two years and all their savings were sucked dry.) Tempers can be short, especially because Carrie wants to return home to Bountiful, even though the town is dying. She's run away a few times and made it to the train station, but Ludie always finds her and brings her home. Will that stop her from trying? It will not. This time, Carrie heads to the bus station, meets a sweet young woman named Thelma (Condola Rashad) and they head off on their adventure together.

We're so used to big moments, major plot twists and the like that theater goers will probably spend much of the show anticipating dramatic turns that never arrive. Will Carrie's heart give out? Will the sheriff in the town near Bountiful (Tom Wopat) prove an ugly bigot? Will seeing Bountiful as a ghost town shatter Carrie rather than restore her? Foote is wiser and more powerful than that. He moves us without any soap opera-like shenanigans. By the end, you wonder why other playwrights have to do so much to achieve so little when Foote seemingly does so little to achieve so much.

Bountiful can break your heart -- certainly the film version emphasizes the fact that frail Carrie is accomplishing the last act of her long life when making this journey. Frail is not the word to describe Tyson's take on the role. She's feisty and endearing and indomitable -- you don't doubt for a moment she's going to get exactly where she wants. Just try and stop her.

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