Dividing the Estate Finds Humor in Human Drama

The Courthouse Center for the Arts in Kingston has been experiencing a bit of a resurgence in its 25^th year. With the departure of the resident theater company a few years ago, the space was in flux. Now, under the direction of JC Wallace and Loraine Lesniak, Courthouse is openly and aggressively courting all manner of arts presentations, and performers are taking note. Epic Theatre Company, having recently explored the use of The Artists’ Exchange, continues its progress south of the Cranston-Dixon line to stage Horton Foote’s gently hilarious Dividing the Estate.

Estate’s action is set in 1980’s Texas, but the ghosts of an earlier, gentrified past haunt the Gordons, a matriarchal clan struggling to hang onto what little wealth remains in the family before taxes and debt swallow it whole. Brothers and sisters feud while in-laws, grandchildren and the few remaining servants all claw for their piece of the pie. Carol Drowne’s Stella, the aging guardian of the Gordon fortune, trusts all financial matters to the nebbish, but politely firm Son (Michael Shallcross), while her other boy, Lewis (delivered with a shambling grace by Geoff White) drinks and gambles his share into the ground. The opposing forces presented by the practical Son, who favors divvying up the shares to avoid estate taxes and other entanglements, and the philandering, but sentimental Lewis, are mirrored by the sisters Lucille and Mary Jo. The latter, played with scenery-chewing glee by Cherylee Sousa Dumas, is the personification of an unbridled greed at which the others only politely hint. As the present day looms large and the financial realities crowd in, the play is a struggle between past and present. The glory days of the estate where rich farmland made them self-sustaining (and a symbol of the money that once flooded playwright Foote’s East Texas homeland) are rapidly receding and the aged servants, crumbling infrastructure and mounting bills are all potent reminders of the recession-drenched present. The servants, played by Jason Quinn, Cilla Julia Bento and Tiffany Fenton all shine here and represent perhaps the most consistent performances of the large ensemble. While most actors here have their moments (including the vibrant Kerry Giorgi as Son’s fiancée, Pauline), inconsistent accents and some static staging keep this redneck Chekov piece from realizing the dynamic tension that has such potential. The aforementioned depth of space is rarely explored and most action remains downstage for far too long. A good thing for audience members seated in the front, but anyone who chooses to view the play from the sides will only be fully rewarded during a delightfully tense dinner scene, set upstage, that exemplifies the Gordons’ petty tensions and sets up Quinn’s finest moment.

Alicia Spears’ set uses the found grandeur of the Courthouse space to full effect with furniture that reeks of musty early-20^th century class, and Director Gladys Cole’s choice of music pulls us back to the southern sounds of the family’s last AM radio honky-tonk hurrah (I waited in vain for the relatively obscure blues singer Son House to make an appearance during the intermission among the Johnny Cash, Dolly Parton and Ray Charles tunes, but I have to remember that musical puns are a low form of humor that perhaps only I enjoy). Spears, who also is listed as lighting designer, missed an opportunity to add texture to the wonderful spaces defined by her set and the static plot is a bit stale, leaving the extreme corners of the playing space drenched in shadow.

Dividing the Estate is a bittersweet family drama that often takes darkly comic turns. In a world where bad men get to pass away peacefully in bed while good men are struck down toiling on their hard-won land, the notions of justice and fair play are often upended. The end result, however, is a timeless observance of the power of the past multiplied by greed. We laugh, perhaps too loudly, at their foibles, because the Gordons could be our own family, and any one of them could be us.

Epic Theatre Company’s RI Premiere of Horton Foote’s Dividing the Estate runs through August 24^th at the Courthouse Center for the Arts, 3481 Kingstown Rd (Rte 138), West Kingston. Tickets are $20 at www.brownpapertickets.com.