Before she authored the novel “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn,” Betty Smith wrote a play about the identical character, Francie Nolan. Smith’s novel, which follows Francie from younger girlhood to the cusp of 17, was revealed in 1943 to nice acclaim and lasting success. “Becomes A Woman,” which Smith wrote in 1931 and dramatizes Francie’s life beginning at age 19, has by no means been produced…till now, 92 years later.
The Mint Theater Company, which for 3 many years has been within the theatrical salvaging enterprise, has carried out its standard spectacular job of researching, casting and costuming this present, with a set that matches the script, regardless of the small stage and smaller finances . The essays in this system, which at all times present essential context, are particularly fascinating right here, as a result of it seems that Smith greater than something needed to be a playwright.
She wrote seventy performs, principally one-acts, and studied playwriting as a non-matriculated scholar at three universities – on the University of Michigan (the place one in every of her lecturers, Kenneth Thorpe Rowe, later taught Arthur Miller), at Yale (the place one in every of her classmates, Elia Kazan, would later direct the film adaptation of her best-known novel), and on the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (the place she was employed by the Federal Theater Project to jot down performs and edit anthologies, one in every of which included one in every of Tennessee Williams’ earliest performs, “At Liberty.”)
None of her performs achieved the success of her novels, however some did win awards, together with“Becomes A Woman.” It’s unclear why it was by no means produced. Dramaturg Maya Cantu within the Mint program means that its themes had been too “socially transgressive” for the period. This is tough for me to purchase on condition that 1931 marked the Broadway debut of Eugene O’Neill’s “Mourning Becomes Electra,” a contemporary tackle the Greek tragedy the Oresteia that includes homicide, adultery, incestuous love, and revenge. Would you argue that O’Neill was already well-known by then, and a person? Well then, what about Sophie Treadwell’s “Machinal” on Broadway in 1928, which informed the true story of an adulterous lady who murdered her husband and was electrocuted.
I can’t know the explanation why “Becomes A Woman” was by no means produced. At this level, the play is of higher historic than aesthetic curiosity, however there are virtually sufficient good strains, and delicate wit, in addition to an intriguing proto-feminist sensibility, to compensate for the components which are stilted, predictable, and dated.
The Francie of the play and the novel aren’t exactly the identical — their household and their work historical past differ in some particulars, and the novel is extra clearly autobiographical.
At the beginning of the play, Francie (Emma Pfitzer Price) is working as a singing gross sales clerk on the sheet music counter of Kress Dime Store, the place fends off the regular stream of recent younger male prospects who press her for a date. She vows by no means to fall for any of them, and by no means to have kids. Her co-workers imagine that is out of concern relatively than independence; they describe her “afraid of her family, afraid of the boss, afraid to make a date.” In any case, she abruptly drops her resolutions when Leonard Press Jr. (Peterson Townsend), the boss’s son, enters the shop, together with his spats and his cane and his charming methods.
“Aside from the fact that his pants are pressed, I can’t see that he’s any different from anyone else,” sassy older co-worker Florry (Pearl Rhein) warns Francie.
“He’s different, I tell you,” Francie solutions. He’s completely different from my father … from Jimmy O’Neill…. [the boy who’s been trying to court her.]. I don’t care what you say, Florry, there are different form of males on the earth.”
“Sure,” Florry retorts. “But you have to pay a half a dollar to see them in the movies.”
But Francie doesn’t hear, and we see the place that leads in Act II three months later, when she brings Kress to satisfy her household. The early moments along with her Pa, her Ma, and her two youthful brothers really feel most paying homage to the familial scenes she wrote in her novel twelve years later.. Pa Nolan is a little bit of a blowhard whose lack of self-awareness feels comedian for a time as does the household’s awkwardness with this rich stranger. (It is to Jeb Brown’s credit score that he doesn’t play Pa for laughs.) But the scene quickly modifications tone. Pa has simply talked unbidden about how good he’s as a police officer, how everyone likes him, how he treats even the prostitutes with compassion, when Francie pronounces that she and Mr. Kress are getting married.
Ma Nolan (Antoinette LaVecchia) will get to the guts of the matter: “Do you have to get married?”
Francie is silent. Ma is devastated. Pa is infuriated; kicking her out of the home and forcing Kress to marry her, by threats of violence and blackmail.
If the scene is overly acquainted, it quickly departs considerably from the usual melodrama, when Francie, realizing that Kress doesn’t need to marry her, begs her father to cease attempting to make him accomplish that. He doesn’t hear.
Act III happens eight months later, and I received’t give particulars in what to me looks like an unlikely sequence of occasions. I’ll solely specify one passage, as a result of it’s outdoors the central motion and an instance of the offbeat humor within the play. Francie has remained mates with Tessie (Gina Daniels), one in every of her former coworkers, and with Tessie’s beau Max, who drives an ambulance. She confesses to Francie that they will get married
Tessie: I do know evidently I made up my thoughts in an terrible hurry. But then I at all times did need to marry a physician.
Francie: But Max isn’t a physician
Tessie: I do know. But he smells like one and I solely needed to marry a physician as a result of I like that odor.
As for Francie, due to her bitter experiences, she good points braveness and…properly…the title of the play. Her newfound braveness leads her to actions which are dramatic, inspiring even, however don’t really feel very like what somebody who grew up in poverty would do. Francie doesn’t simply grow to be a girl. She turns into a heroine in one of many motion pictures Florry was speaking about.
Becomes A Woman
Mint Theater at New York City Center Stage II by March 1
Written by Betty Smith
Directed by Britt Berke
Running time: two and a half hours with two intermissions.
Tickets: $49 to $90
Sets by Vicki R. Davis, costume by Emilee McVey-Lee, lights by M.L. Geiger, sound and authentic music by M. Florian Staab, props by Chris Fields, dialects and dramaturgy by Amy StollerIntimacy & Fight Direction by Cha Ramos
Cast: Emma Pfitzer Price as Francie Nolan, Duane Boutté, Christopher Reed Brown, Jeb Brown
Gina Daniels, Antoinette LaVecchia, Jack Mastrianni, Jason O’Connell, Scott Redmond, Pearl Rhein, Madeline Seidman, Phillip Taratula, Peterson Townsend, Tim Webb
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