![]() She tattles on Horace at every opportunity. She won't play a tune unless everyone's listening. But Lily Dale is skittish about marrying because of what husbands do to wives, you know, to make them have babies.īut neither ragtime nor romance can save Lily Dale from herself or her selfishness. She does have a boyfriend, Will Kidder, whom Davenport favors over his own stepson. And Lily Dale? She fritters away the days avoiding books, trying to forget the past and composing ragtime music on the piano. Corella is torn between love for her son and dependence on her husband. Throughout much of the 95-minute movie, he lies on the Davenports' davenport sweating like a hog. Coons, and Foote himself does the voice-over of Horace as an old man. Jean Stapleton makes a couple of memorable appearances as the pious proselytizer Mrs. The high-powered "Lily Dale" cast includes Stockard Channing as Corella, Sam Shepard as Pete Davenport, Tim Guinee ("How to Make an American Quilt") as Horace and the director's daughter, Mary Stuart Masterson, as Lily Dale. The TV drama was directed by Foote's cousin Peter Masterson, the same guy who directed Foote's 1995 Pulitzer Prize-winning play, "The Young Man From Atlanta," in New York. Unlike Foote's masterpieces, "Tender Mercies" and "A Trip to Bountiful," this play is buh-leak beyond belief. All four characters wind up in the Davenport house, and the result is downright, down-home depression. He has not seen either since he was 12 because his wicked stepfather, Pete Davenport, believes a boy ought to be self-reliant. The story is this: In 1910, a 20 year-old Robedaux, whose father drank himself to death, goes to Houston to be reunited with his mother, Corella, and his sister, Lily Dale. But as a stand-alone, made-for-TV drama, it fails to educate or delight. To be fair, "Lily Dale" is one part of a nine-play cycle - built around a character named Horace Robedaux - and it might make more sense in context. The ragtime flavored score is beautifully delivered, with the ensemble numbers achieving a powerful emotional resonance.From Horton Foote, a storyteller revered for his simplicity, comes a tale that's simply awful - "Lily Dale." A visually lush production of the 1979 play premieres tonight at 10 on Showtime. It’s almost unfair to compare the current, largely unknown company to their predecessors because the original Broadway production featured a dream cast, but the ensemble does justice to the material.Īmong those who should be singled out are Noll, deeply moving as the emotionally starved Mother Steggert, who brings real depths of shading to the radical leaning younger brother and Darrington, who delivers a quietly powerful and beautifully sung turn as Coalhouse, whose turn toward violent anarchy after becoming the victim of a racially charged incident fuels the show’s second act. But it works beautifully, balancing the epic with the intimate and keeping the uncommonly large 40-member company in full view of the audience for long stretches. (Quentin Earl Darrington), a black couple whose travails fuel the increasingly melodramatic and violent plot line.ĭirector-choreographer Marcia Milgrom Dodge’s presentational-style staging, performed on a multilevel scaffold set, is far less lavish than the original version. Terrence McNally’s book skillfully condenses the multiple narrative threads of Doctorow’s sprawling tale, concentrating on three intersecting groups of characters: Tateh (Robert Petkoff), a penniless Russian Jewish immigrant desperate to protect his young daughter (Sarah Rosenthal) a wealthy WASP family living in New Rochelle consisting of Father (Ron Bohmer), Mother (Christiane Noll), their young son (Christopher Cox) and Mother’s younger brother (Bobby Steggert) and Sarah (Stephanie Umoh) and Coalhouse Walker Jr. It is a mosaic of turn-of-the-century America, using the musical idioms of ragtime to literally underscore the social pressures engendered by the huge influx of immigrants and the racism endemic to the era. Washington, Emma Goldman, Henry Ford, Harry Houdini and Evelyn Nesbit. Set in the early years of the 20th century, the story interweaves its fictional characters with a gallery of historical personages, including Booker T. Directors Guild Members Overwhelmingly Vote to Ratify Deal With Studios, Streamers
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