Daddy’s Dyin, Who’s Got The Will
*** THE SHOW TRANSFERS TO THEATRE/THEATER - HOLLYWOOD ***
EXTENDED Through June 28, 2009.
---- Review ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Director Jeff Murray, along with Nicollet Chaffery and Shores received the Production of the Year Award from LA Weekly when Daddy’s Dyin, Who’s Got the Will was first produced at Theatre/Theater in 1987. Amazingly, I attended that production and remember it both hilarious and emotionally satisfying.
Writer Del Shores went on to write such well known plays as Daughter’s of the Lone Star State, Sordid Lives, Southern Baptist Sisters, and The Trials and Tribulations of a Trailer Trash Housewife, plays that won many awards and nominations as well as being turned into various television series and films.
Out of innumerable productions, Daddy’s Dyin, Who’s Got the Will is the first that Theatre/Theatre has ever remounted, and the first to be performed in the handsome main space of the new Theatre/Theatre on Pico Blvd. It is the story of a Texas family who gather together to await the death of their stroke-suffering patriarch. Greedy expectations predominate as they discover that the will is missing and old rivalries and petty disputes surface as each member of the group is forced to come to term with his/her own life. It is the first official African-American casting of the play.
I must confess, however, that I enjoyed the first production much more than this one.
I wondered at first if perhaps the writing was dated. This may be somewhat true, but the emotional depth of the second act is universal and spans time. I asked myself if I didn’t in fact just find it easier to laugh at low class Texan hicks than at middle class African Americans. But an indisputable reason is that I felt the entire first act was way over the top, almost ‘sit com’ like; so much so that the cast could never get back to reality for the pathos of the second act.
Actors were continually facing out to the audience, talking too loudly, showing off and exaggerating, creating caricatures of themselves; an old lady pretends to be an old lady, as if being old wasn’t enough; a sexy daughter (played by an actress that had obvious potential) is so uncomfortable in her costume that she does nothing but go through a series of poses more suited for a would be model than an actress, let alone a real human being; an abused daughter allows tension to drive up vocal pitch impeding intelligibility; and an old man is neither old nor sick. Only Brandon Breault (Harmony) and Lee Stasberry (Orville) managed to act from a centered place grounded in reality.
I am a great fan of Jeff Murray and have admired much of his work, but am not thrilled by this production. Many of the reviews have been very good so I am in the minority. Perhaps it is just that kind of superficial story telling that holiday audiences will enjoy. I hope so.