The Orphans' Home Cycle

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Horton Foote's The Orphans' Home Cycle: Part Three, now at Signature Theatre Company in a co-production with Hartford Stage, is the final installment of what has been a remarkable theatrical achievement -- combining nine of the late playwright's works into one three-part epic that follows the life of Horace Robedaux (Bill Heck), a character based on Foote's own father. However, this last trio, subtitled The Story of a Family, is unevenly presented and only partially fulfills the promise of the material.

The first work of the evening, 1918, chronicles a tumultuous year in Horace's life. The first World War is underway overseas, while back in the character's hometown of Harrison, Texas, a pl[...]

Horton Foote's The Orphans' Home Cycle, at the Signature Theatre in a co-production with Hartford Stage, continues to impress. Part Two, subtitled "The Story of a Marriage," builds on the excellent groundwork laid out in the first segment of this three-part, nine-play epic as it tells the story of Horace Robedaux (Bill Heck), who leaves behind his troubled boyhood and embarks upon life with his wife, Elizabeth (Maggie Lacey).

The evening incorporates the three plays The Widow Claire, Courtship, and Valentine's Day, with each section drawing a fine and sometimes heartbreaking portrait of small-town Texas life in the early part of the twentieth century. In the first act, Horace courts the re[...]

Before passing away earlier this year at the age of 92, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Horton Foote edited down and combined nine of his plays into a three-part opus, collectively called The Orphans' Home Cycle, and now being presented by the Signature Theatre Company in a co-production with Hartford Stage. And the overall fine quality of the two hour-and-fifty-minute first installment makes for an excellent start to this epic undertaking.

Part One, subtitled The Story of a Childhood, introduces us to the work's central character, Horace Robedaux, who is modeled after Foote's own father. The three plays (plus a prologue) presented here feature a trio of actors in the role of Horace: Dyla[...]