The Carpetbagger's Children

Three grown sisters in Texas -- Grace Anne, Cornelia, and Sissie -- dwell on the legacy of their father, a Union soldier, who moved South during the Reconstruction to work as a tax collector while plantation owners were going broke. A Northerner who profits from the breakup of Southern plantations is the very definition of "carpetbagger," and all three women have to contend with Papa's uneasy reputation in the cotton town of Harrison. They tell their stories in a cycle, one at a time, so that most of the play consists of a series of monologues. Horton Foote based the story on his own family; it premiered at Lincoln Center two years ago. (Foote also wrote the screenplays for Tender Mercies and To Kill a Mockingbird.) This production has a quiet, urgent rhythm that tends to flag while Cornelia has the floor; Gretchen Grant sometimes gropes for command of her lines. Linda Ayres-Frederick is more engaging as Grace Anne, who in any case is the loud family rebel; Katherine Austin-Groen plays a solid, sweet-voiced young Sissie. The script as a whole suffers from too much small-town gossip, but the women's stories recall a fascinating, fading piece of sepia-toned American history.