The Weather Is Cold, the Feelings More So Owen Davis’s ‘Icebound’ Evokes All Kinds of Bitterness
Anita GatesSeptember 27, 2014: Families were bigger then, and so were the casts of plays. In Alex Roe’s fine revival of Icebound, the Metropolitan Playhouse’s cozy upstairs theater is crowded with members of the Jordan family: grim grown sons and daughters, a sour daughter-in-law and two annoying grandchildren, all waiting in the parlor for the matriarch to die offstage, and all talking about how they’ll spend her money. Owen Davis wrote Icebound, which won the 1923 Pulitzer Prize for drama, about small-town Maine, where he had grown up. The title refers to human emotions more than to bitter Northeastern winters, although one character does say, “Seems like laughter needs the sun the same way flowers do.” That’s Ben (Quinlan Corbett) speaking, the youngest child and so prodigal a son that he’ll be arrested as soon as law enforcement realizes he’s back in town. The only ray of warmth here is Jane (Olivia Killingsworth), a distant cousin who actually cares for — and about — the dying woman. When the local judge (Rob Skolits) reveals that everything (the house; the farm; the entire, considerable estate) has been bequeathed to Jane, the reactions of these good folk, who are better at Christian stoicism than at Christian love, are exactly what you’d expect.
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