Theater: Stephen Sondheim Theatre / 124 West 43rd Street, New York, NY, 10036
Synopsis:
The touching American classic, The Trip to Bountiful , tells the story of Carrie Watts, an elderly woman who dreams of returning to her small hometown of Bountiful, TX one last time, against the wishes of her overprotective son and domineering daughter-in-law. Her journey becomes a heartbreaking but ultimately life-affirming and inspiring tale that examines the fragility of memory and celebrates the enduring power of hope and faith.
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April 23, 2013: The title destination in Horton Foote’s “Trip to Bountiful,” which has been revived at the Stephen Sondheim Theater, is said to be a small, obscure town in Texas. But on the evidence of the performance of Cicely Tyson, who stars in the production that opened on Tuesday night under Michael Wilson’s slow-handed direction, Bountiful is a code name for the Fountain of Youth.
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April 23, 2013: Move over, you adorable scamps in "Annie." Settle down, weird girls in "Matilda." Broadway has a new unlikely heroine, a frail widow who hums hymns and has a bad heart.
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April 23, 2013: Cicely Tyson delivers a fully animated, very spirited performance that makes the audience want to root for her to finally arrive home. The statuesque Vanessa Williams is also an ideal choice for the self-centered Jessie May.
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April 23, 2013: But the production’s tone is inconsistent, too often sacrificing truthful poignancy in favor of jaunty humor and manufactured sentiment. Instead of a quiet elegy that can cut deep with its sense of reaching for a past that exists now only in the imagination, it has become a heartwarming dramedy (a word I hate) of a kind regularly found on basic cable.
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April 23, 2013: Following a 30-year Broadway absence, Tyson gives an awe-inspiring performance. She sings, she dances, she does everything but cartwheels. She's well matched by Vanessa Williams — wickedly funny as her bossy daughter-in-law — if not by Oscar winner Cuba Gooding Jr. (Jerry Maguire), who's out of his emotional depths as her broken-down son. Yet perhaps Tyson's best scene is with ex–Dukes of Hazzard star Tom Wopat. You'd think a burly, white small-town sheriff going nose to nose with a tiny black woman would be unsettling. But it's simply, quietly moving. B+
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