Primary Stages presents Horton Foote's The Roads to Home, a trio of one-act plays that tell the stories of three women who reminisce on the same hometown of Harrison. Set in Houston in the 1920s, the first scene follows Mabel (Hallie Foote) and her next-door neighbor Vonnie (Harriet Harris), who receive a daily visit from Annie Gayle Long (Rebecca Brooksher), a mentally unstable young women from Harrison. As Annie reminisces on her childhood in Harrison, Mabel and Vonnie become increasingly concerned about her forgetfulness and anxiety, especially once her husband Mr. Long (Dan Bittner) comes to collect her, telling her that he will have to send her to an asylum in Austin if she doesn’t get better soon.
The second scene takes place six months later, when Mabel learns that Annie has been sent to the Austin asylum, where two young men from Harrison also live. Vonnie bursts into their apartment in tears, as her husband Eddie (Matt Sullivan) has just asked her for a divorce so he can marry a woman he met in Harrison, and she prays with Mabel that he will soon come to his senses. Four years later, the third scene takes us to Annie, still in the asylum in Austin, as she struggles to keep clear the memories of her life. The timeline becomes increasingly confused as her memories present different accounts of the time that has elapsed since she came to the asylum, and the equally fuddled memories of Cecil (Devon Abner) and Greene (Matt Sullivan) further confuse her fate.
These three stories relate to each other in powerful yet simple ways, with a thoughtfulness that is only amplified by the excellence of the performances. Directed by Michael Wilson, the actors’ moving performances make the play’s simple focus all the richer. Rebecca Brooksher delivers an understated performance that perfectly captures the spirit of Annie’s constant state of reminiscence, avoiding the all-too-easy trap of overplaying her madness to create a simple but captivating and moving portrayal of Annie’s plight. Devon Abner provides incredible comic relief as Mabel’s sleepy husband, Jack, his uninterested commentary on Vonnie’s plight making for excellent dry humor to break up the tensions of the scene.
As two next door neighbors prone to reminiscing, Harriet Harris and Hallie Foote communicate largely through gossipy exchanges. Though domesticity and small-town gossip can often come across as trivial, the show's domestic focus, captured perfectly in Jeff Cowie’s beautiful set design, still feels very high-stakes as the two women struggle to keep their lives in order. The interconnected nature of the three one-act plays leads to a deeply stimulating piece. Though the scenes are connected through their characters, they are also disjointed enough to leave some storyline threads open-ended, leaving a lingering and powerful thoughtfulness even once the lights have come back up.
