“The Orphans’ Home Cycle Part 3” fitting completion to an epic triology

HARTFORD — Horton Foote’s “The Orphans’ Home Cycle,” “Part 3: The Story of Family” concludes his epic posthumous trilogy at the Hartford Stage Company.
The play starts dimly lit with somber violin music and rain falling. The actors walk stately beneath umbrellas across the stage.
Their elegiac pace sets a somber, slow-paced rhythm that is a nice transition from the hectic outside world into the space and time of the slower paced, evolving world of Texas in the early 1900s, with inspired, assured direction by Michael Wilson.
The saga continues where it left off in Part 2, with Horace Robedaux (Bill Heck) and his bride Elizabeth (Maggie Lacey) setting up home and business in fictional Harrison, Texas in 1918 — a year of World War and the flu pandemic that killed more than 100 million people around the world (No better advertisement to get a flu shot soon.)
Even if you haven’t seen the other two plays in the trilogy you can still fully enjoy Part 3 on its own, but having seen the first two adds a depth to the experience.
World War I is over, but there are few jobs to be had, so they keep holding parades, so much that Mr. Vaughn says exasperatedly, “If the poor devils could find work they wouldn’t have time to parade.”
This segment feels more melodramatic than the previous two, with deaths followed immediately by another birth, then a operation, tough times in the depressed south, and then more death — this time the patriarch of the family, Mr. Vaughn, played by the robust and expansive James DeMarse.
Heck as Robedaux continues to be the good and hard-working provider, here finally buying that tombstone for his father’s grave that he had been determined to purchase since he was 12 years old.
Foote, who died earlier this year at the age of 92, really knew many of these times and these people, having grown up in Texas, and basing the main character, Horace Robedaux, on the life of his own father.
It was a simpler time, when the anesthesia used was ether, there were few telephones, and doctors made house calls, but underneath that nostalgic simplicity lies complex human relations and emotions, which makes this story so watchable and compelling.
Robedaux’s 12-year-old son, Horace Jr., is played by the thoroughly engaging and earnest Dylan Riley Snyder who more than holds his own with all the adults surrounding him. He has a bookish curiosity, plus a real sponge-like interest in how grown ups behave and what they say that makes their words almost resonate twice.
And some of the adults who never grow up, like Brother Vaughn, (Bryce Pinkham) do behave badly indeed, and are enabled again and again by family, particularly his mother, played by the playwright’s daughter, the fine and flinty Hallie Foote.
The actors dropped a few lines and their timing was off some on Thursday, but overall the performances were true, and the slow smooth story unfolded comfortably enough.
“The Orphans’ Home Cycle; Part 3” is a slice of southern life about normal, well-meaning, and good people that is beautifully written and a pleasure to experience.

THE OPHANS' HOME CYCLE: PART 3

three stars
Location: Hartford Stage Company, 50 Church Street, Hartford.
Production: Written by Horton Foote. Directed by Michael Wilson. Set designed by Jeff Cowie and David Barber. Costume design by David Woolard. Lighting design by Rui Rita. Original music and sound design by John Gromada. Choreography by Peter Pucci.
Running time: 3 hours with two intermissions.
Show Times: Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays at 7 p.m., Friday and Saturday at 7:30 p.m., with matinee performances Sundays and selected Wednesdays and Saturdays at 2 p.m. through October 24, with the three-play marathon performances on Saturday, Oct. 17 and 24.
Tickets: $33 and up. Call 860-527-5151 or visit their website at hartfordstage.org.
ACTOR…CHARACTER
Bill Heck … Horace Robedaux
Maggie Lacey … Elizabeth Robedaux
Hallie Foote … Mrs. Vaughn, Lola Reeves
Bryce Pinkham … Brother Vaughn
James DeMarse … Mr. Vaughn
Virginia Kull … Minnie Curtis, Bessie Stillman
Jenny Dare Paulin … Lily Dale Kidder
Devon Abner … Pete Davenport
Dylan Riley Snyder … Horace Jr.
Annalee Jefferies … Corella Davenport
Steven Plunkett … Monty Reeves