Horton Foote

I found out on March 13th that Horton Foote had died. He had passed away on March 4th, actually, and I had missed it, but it’s easy to miss news cut off from things as we are up here. Or as I choose to be. I was traveling back north to Vermont from New York and had stopped to get some food and while I was waiting for it to be prepared I spied a copy of the Arts Section of the New York Times and something called to me to look inside it. This has happened to me often over the years, this kind of calling, and I always heed it. 9 times out of 10 I am led to something that I need to see, usually an obituary, but many times an article or editorial that sticks with me the rest of my life. This time the news was about Horton.  

For those of you who may not know, Horton Foote was an Academy Award and Pulitzer Prize winning playwright and screenwriter and I had the great good fortune of working with him on 2 occasions: a workshop of his play "Habitation of Dragons" and an Off-Broadway production of "The Widow Claire" at Circle in the Square downtown; a theatre, sadly, that is no longer in existence.  In "The Widow Claire" I got to play the town rube, Roger, and he remains one of my all time favorite roles.  Roger is the sidekick to the town's bully and is a fellow who, like many other characters in the play including the bully, is smitten by the young widow (played by Hallie Foote, Horton's daughter). Late in the play, Roger comes to the widow's house at 4 in the morning, ostensibly to deliver a bottle of whiskey, but really to just bask in her presence.  Claire makes her excuses and goes inside and then for 3 pages of script I rhapsodize non-stop to Claire's hapless suitor, Horace (Matthew Broderick), about everything I know and love about the young widow, following him around every inch of the stage as I do. This scene felt like "the 11 o’clock spot” and I looked forward to doing it every single night.  Within the scene I had one of the best lines I've ever gotten to say on stage. After having exhausted every possible topic of discussion with Horace/Matthew  (“Do you like hot tamales? I love hot tamales!”) , I sit beside him on the widow's front steps, waiting for her to reappear.  I don't want to leave and Matthew’s character is too polite to simply say "Get the hell out." Finally, after a long silence, I turn to him, smile, and ask: "Do you prefer the light or the dark meat of chicken?" 

It was like gold, like speaking gold. A gift from the Gods. 

You may be asking yourself "That's all very nice, but what does this have to do with a blog about living in Vermont?" Well, there is a connection of sorts. I read in one of the articles about Horton's life that during the '60's, with his writing not getting the attention it had once received, he and his wife decided to move from New York City up to New Hampshire to raise their family, so he was in the area. I wonder why they decided on New Hampshire instead of going back down to Texas and his southern roots? Maybe New England called to him too. Maybe he needed to be away from Texas to write about it.  And I know from experience that he didn't need to be there, it resided within him.  I remember once when I was in rehearsal for "Habitation of Dragons" , a workshop production that Horton was directing, he stood up and began describing the town in which the play took place in order to give us some background and atmosphere. I take it that the town was the fictional "Harrison" as in so many of his other plays. He walked us down every street of that town, describing where each of the homes were and who lived in them, what the various businesses were, where they stood. To be honest, most of what he said wasn't that helpful to me as an actor, but it was fascinating watching Horton step right back into that town. He was there, he was on those streets as he told you about them.

I agree with those who say that Horton was an American Chekhov. Something simple and true and ineffable about the human condition resonated beneath his words. When I think of how much I love his writing, how it perfectly moves a story forward while at the same time revealing what's going on within characters with elegance and grace, the best example I can come up with is from a scene in his screenplay of Harper Lee's "To Kill A Mockingbird" for which he won an Academy Award. (He received another for “Tender Mercies.”) I'll describe it as I've seen it in the film, acted beautifully, but pure Horton Foote. The scene is at the end of the first act of the movie. Atticus has tucked his children into bed and as they drift off to sleep in their separate bedrooms Scout begins asking Jim questions which he answers with a simple "yes" or "no." The topic of conversation shifts to their deceased mother as the camera slowly pulls out of their bedrooms and discovers Atticus sitting quietly on the front porch, listening. The children's exchange continues with questions like: "Did she love you?" "Yes" "Did she love me?" "Yes"and finally - "Do you miss her?" The question hangs in the air, unanswered. The children have fallen asleep.  Atticus sits alone with his thoughts, unmoving.  And you know everything you need to know about all of those characters and where they are. In the next moment the town's judge arrives to ask Atticus if he'll take the Robinson case and the second act of the story begins.

Perfect.

Thank you Horton