The newly revised version of Horton Foote’s most famous play which appeared at New York’s Signature Theatre in 2005. Originally a 1953 teleplay featuring Lillian Gish as Carrie Watts, this work has been in production throughout the country ever since. Foote’s 1985 screen adaptation resulted in an Academy Award for Geraldine Page.
THE REVIEWS
TOP PICK. Graceful, elegant, and haunting... Led by the magnificent Jane Squier Bruns and the rest of director Jack Sbarbori’s perfect-pitch cast, Quotidian once again shows why it takes a back seat to no theater in Washington as an interpreter of Foote...
Much of the credit must go to Collins and Russell, who succeed in making their unlikeable characters human. The business of an actor in a serious play is to make a full-borne, complex character grow out of the field the playwright lays out for them. Foote gave Collins and Russell a hard stubbly row to hoe, and the harvest is terrific. Characters with fewer lines nonetheless pay the same attention to detail as the leads, and the result is one of those rare plays in which there is not a single false note.
-Tim Treanor, DC Theatre Scene
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...a moving version of one of Foote's best-loved plays. Under Jack Sbarbori's sure-handed direction, the details of Foote's poetic script are completely realized. Bruns neatly articulates Carrie's dilemma and her dream. She appears fragile and demure, but inside she's a tiger. She doesn't live in the past but she does cherish it. Collins plays Ludie as a dutiful, sensitive son. He does a balancing act as a husband; he's not a coward but is unwilling to put his wife in her place. Foote drew Jessie Mae is a complex character, in part cruel, in part just foolish. Russell emphasizes her silliness. Samantha Merrick, Steve La Rocque and John Decker are excellent in smaller roles. Stephanie Mumford's costumes are marvelous period pieces.
-Sara Schwartz, Washington Examiner
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There is not a more delicately warm play like "THE TRIP TO BOUNTIFUL" (To 5/16) by Horton Foote who tells the poignant story of an elderly woman who must return to a run down shack in Bountiful, Texas to fulfill an end-of-life completion to her final demise. It is being played by the Quotidian Theater. Jane Squier Bruns is outstanding in her portrayal of the lead character but very ably supported by John Collins as her adult son and his somewhat nasty...because of repressions...Laura Russell as his feisty wife. The rest of the cast is finely portrayed by Samantha Merrick, David Dubov, Don Bruns, John Decker and Steve LaRocque. But it is Ms. Bruns that deserves an award nomination for her sensitive portrayal that allows all seniors to have remembrances of their youthful dislikes and dalliances...almost like Jung's return to the earth. Jack Sbarbori again proves that no one is in his superior category in directing sensitive family portrayals especially by Horton Foote. This is a highly recommended...and clean...script and it is a great family show.
-Bob Anthony www.allartsreview4u.com/
