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| Sada Thompson. |
“Emily” [Romance]; “Celia”
[Marriage]; “Dorothy” [Marriage]; “Ma” [Marriage/Old Age]
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| A. Larry Haines, Sada Thompson. |
A program of four one-acts that served well as a vehicle for character actress Sada Thompson, who played each one’s eponymous character, comprising three sisters and their mother. She changed her costume (designed by my talented college classmate, Sara Brook), makeup, and wig for each. The plays take place in different urban kitchens on the day before Thanksgiving.
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| Robert Donley, Sada Thompson. |
Ranging in style from
the semi-serious to the farcical, Twigs begins
with “Emily,” about a widow who is attracted to the head of the moving company
(Nicholas Coster) that has just moved her into her new home. She makes a date
with him for Thanksgiving dinner.
Then comes “Celia,”
about her sister, who is unsuccessful at getting into the swing of her selfish
husband’s (Simon Oakland) macho conversation with an old army buddy (Conrad
Bain).
“Celia” is followed
by “Dorothy,” in which the third sister and her spouse (A. Larry Hines)
overcome her superstitious fears of celebrating their 25th anniversary.
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| Sada Thompson, Nicholas Coster. |
Finally, there is “Ma,”
about the matriarchal virago who wants to marry her common-law husband (Robert
Donley) before she dies.
Twigs’s title is based on poet Alexander Pope’s line, “Just as the
twig is bent, the tree’s inclined.” By our viewing, in the last scene, the
mother of the three daughters, we are—as per
Pope’s remark—expected to understand all that came before. The playwright, in
fact, does not make it clear in the first three scenes that the women are even
related.
Most critics felt the
play was thin stuff with an occasional funny remark, more effective as an
acting vehicle than a contribution to dramatic literature. The four women were
thought neither sufficiently developed nor different enough to consider their
characterizations especially noteworthy, but Sada Thompson’s performance was
nonetheless a season highlight. Clive Barnes termed the play “rickety,”
unoriginal, and worthy of little attention outside of Thompson’s presence. John
Simon wrote that the playlets “of such abject triviality, such forced and
simplistic humor, such clumsily apparent joining, that I felt I was watching a
workshop play.”
Critical support,
though, came from Walter Kerr, for whom these were “four, funny and touching
and freshly conceived pieces,” and from Brendan Gill, who felt great “admiration”
for this “often very funny and no less often touching” comedy.
Simon may have found
Thompson’s work “second-rate,” but his colleagues raved. Barnes
declared that Twigs revealed her “remarkable”
talent. “She is confident and assertive and etches in each of her subtly
different characters with bold, deft strokes. She also exhibits that special
sympathy for life, that expansiveness, that not only makes stars but also makes
audience idols.”
Accordingly, Thompson
won the Tony for Best Actress, Play, the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding
Performance, and Variety’s Poll for
Female Lead.
Readers of this blog who may be
interested in my Theatre's Leiter Side review collections (one with a memoir),
covering almost every show of 2012-2014, will find them at Amazon.com by clicking here.
Next up: Two by Two