From Horton Foote, a storyteller revered for his simplicity, comes a tale that's simply awful -- "Lily Dale." A visually lush production of the 1979 play premieres tonight at 10 on Showtime.
To be fair, "Lily Dale" is one part of a nine-play cycle -- built around a character named Horace Robedaux -- and it might make more sense in context. But as a stand-alone, made-for-TV drama, it fails to educate or delight.
The story is this: In 1910, a 20 year-old Robedaux, whose father drank himself to death, goes to Houston to be reunited with his mother, Corella, and his sister, Lily Dale. He has not seen either since he was 12 because his wicked stepfather, Pete Davenport, believes a boy ought to be self-reliant. All four characters wind up in the Davenport house, and the result is downright, down-home depression. Unlike Foote's masterpieces, "Tender Mercies" and "A Trip to Bountiful," this play is buh-leak beyond belief.
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The TV drama was directed by Foote's cousin Peter Masterson, the same guy who directed Foote's 1995 Pulitzer Prize-winning play, "The Young Man From Atlanta," in New York. The high-powered "Lily Dale" cast includes Stockard Channing as Corella, Sam Shepard as Pete Davenport, Tim Guinee ("How to Make an American Quilt") as Horace and the director's daughter, Mary Stuart Masterson, as Lily Dale. Jean Stapleton makes a couple of memorable appearances as the pious proselytizer Mrs. Coons, and Foote himself does the voice-over of Horace as an old man.
Share this articleShareIn Houston, Horace turns feverish. Throughout much of the 95-minute movie, he lies on the Davenports' davenport sweating like a hog. He despises Davenport. Davenport is disgusted by him. Corella is torn between love for her son and dependence on her husband. And Lily Dale? She fritters away the days avoiding books, trying to forget the past and composing ragtime music on the piano.
She does have a boyfriend, Will Kidder, whom Davenport favors over his own stepson. But Lily Dale is skittish about marrying because of what husbands do to wives, you know, to make them have babies.
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But neither ragtime nor romance can save Lily Dale from herself or her selfishness. She won't play a tune unless everyone's listening. She tattles on Horace at every opportunity. She uses tears and trifling as weapons.
As Foote once wrote about his character, "She seemed to me vain and selfish and not very admirable." Just the kind of girl you want to spend the evening with.
In the end, however, this is not the story of Lily Dale but of Horace. He is a man alone in this world -- weak, out of work and unwanted. The play does raise some larger questions, however, such as: What is a family? Is memory the only thing that binds us to others?
And, what am I doing watching this? CAPTION: Despite its title, "Lily Dale" is really built around Tim Guinee's Horace. CAPTION: Sam Shepard, Stockard Channing and Mary Stuart Masterson in "Lily Dale."
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