“The Trip to Bountiful” was originally written for a white cast set in the south, but decades later the playwright's daughter has adapted the production for African American lead actors.
The cast includes Vanessa Williams and Blair Underwood, but it is 80-something Cicely Tyson, reprising her Tony-Award-winning role, who steals the show.
Tyson, gray hair disheveled, hunch-backed and forgetful in a worn bathrobe on the stage of the Emerson/Cutler Majestic is a far cry from the regal, Tony Award-winning actress sitting before us in a Boston hotel room.
An octogenarian, Tyson headlines the Horton Foote play “The Trip to Bountiful,” about a woman, wedged with her son and overbearing daughter-in-law in a cramped two-room apartment in the 1950s. All Tyson's character, Carrie Watts, wants before she dies is one last visit to her childhood home in Bountiful, Texas.
Tyson said, “I feel like I've been given a second chance to do better in case I messed up at the beginning and it's like a whole new career for me.”
Vanessa Williams plays Watts overbearing daughter-in-law. A stretch, insists Williams.
The original Foote play was written for an all-white cast, set in the Jim Crow South. His daughter, Hallie recast the current production for all black leads, including Blair Underwood, who plays Carrie Watts henpecked son.
Underwood said, “The story works, regardless of the race. It doesn't always work out that way. I don't know if I told you this, but I almost said no.”
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Underwood, who did a similar recast on Broadway in “A Streetcar Named Desire,” said he experienced pushback when black actors were cast in roles written for wealthy white characters.
“People could not wrap their heads around, okay this is an experimental production because that's not realistic,” said Underwood.
The co-stars say Bountiful works because of its universal themes, family, relationships. But Williams says it was the chance to play across Tyson that drew her in.
Tyson has had a storied career and she's in her 80s, but her costars say, don't let the number fool you.
Williams said, “She's a force. There's not one moment where I say, ‘Oh my gosh, this poor old frail woman's not gonna make it. You see her on stage and she's skipping and jumping and running and knocking down stuff.’”
Underwood said, “She just, you know (snaps) bounces back, every time. But the audience doesn't know that so you hear this big gasp. But she's superwoman over here.”
A super woman who says she'll never tire, doing the work she loves.
“The Trip to Bountiful” runs at the Emerson/Cutler Majestic Theater through Dec. 7.
Here are some other great shows in the area.
The Ballet Arts in Worcester presents, “The Nutcracker” at the Hanover Theatre for the Performing Arts in Worcester. It runs through this Sunday.
At the Wilbur Theatre in Boston, Gospel greats, The Blind Boys of Alabama bring their holiday tour, this Sunday only, Nov. 30 at 7:30 p.m.
