The Young Man from Atlanta : Starring Shirley Knight and David Selby (Audio Theatre Series)

Rating:
Summary: A Sincere Joy to Read
Review: Dramatic writers are like orchestral conductors; advancing age serves to enhance the talents of the truly gifted in their ranks. Octogenerian Horton Foote, who imprinted the visual memory of the 1960's generation with his screen adaptation of Harper Lee's novel "To Kill a Mockingbird", won the 1995 Pulitzer Prize for "The Young Man from Atlanta". In this one-act drama, Foote embeds within a structure of six simple scenes a gentle and unsettling tale of 1950's Houston. Will Kidder is the 65 year-old man from Houston whose fortunes grew up with the city -- his prosperity always rendered in large cash sums. "Because I want the best. The biggest and the best. I always have." -- Will alerts co-worker Tom early in the first scene, unaware that he addresses his replacement at the firm he's helped build for almost four decades. Will's simple hope is that constructing the city's biggest house for his highly strung but deeply religious wife Lily Dale will help her overcome the peculiar death of their only child. Non-swimmer son Bill's short stroll into a Florida lake has bequeathed a void to the couple's life along with a young companion from Atlanta -- the never-seen title character -- whose calls Will avoids even as he forbids the grieving mother further contact with the visitor. With the opening of the second scene, Lily Dale, unaware of her husband's firing, occupies her place in their large new house, but the hoarding of her grief and the baggage of her relationship with the unseen Atlantan occupy her thoughts. She confides to her step-father Pete that she has funneled to the stranger most of seventy-five thousand dollars accumulated from Will's past Christmas gifts in gratitude for his comforting testimony about her son's religious devotion at the Atlanta boarding house where they were roommates. Also, Lily Dale -- whose very name conjures proper Southern Baptist assemblages, floral hats, and lily-covered caskets -- admits that she has responded with m! onetary pity to her son's friend's stories of life without loving family. She prays Will himself can come to accept the young man from Atlanta as an important part of her son's life. Then Will admits to her the loss of his job. Discovery that Pete's own nest egg cannot replace the money given to the stranger as outright gift (for now Will needs funding to start a new business) -- along with knowledge that the one hundred thousand dollars Will gave their son over the years is no longer accounted for -- undermines the household's tranquillity. "You've been taken for a fool, woman." Will cries on the way to his heart attack. It is the couple's groping toward "truth telling" to one another that gives impetus to the drama, even as they deal with the more mundane matters of recovering financial stability and failing health. Horton Foote's mid-century characters in "The Young Man from Atlanta" embody a "memory" of American Southern propriety that dared not openly allude to situations outside of prevailing social norms. The preservation of privacy and its refusal to examine reality from different perspectives enabled construction of a societal fortress that defied plundering, even if substantial financial and emotional resources were at stake. As long as the resources remained intact -- or seemingly so -- the Will Kidders could continue functioning as they desired, while deluding themselves into the bargain. "Will Kidder" was a perfect name for the old man from Houston.

Rating:
Summary: The "old" playwright Horton Foote still master of his craft
Review: Dramatic writers are like orchestral conductors; advancing age serves to enhance the talents of the truly gifted in their ranks. Octogenerian Horton Foote, who imprinted the visual memory of the 1960's generation with his screen adaptation of Harper Lee's novel "To Kill a Mockingbird", won the 1995 Pulitzer Prize for "The Young Man from Atlanta". In this one-act drama, Foote embeds within a structure of six simple scenes a gentle and unsettling tale of 1950's Houston. Will Kidder is the 65 year-old man from Houston whose fortunes grew up with the city -- his prosperity always rendered in large cash sums. "Because I want the best. The biggest and the best. I always have." -- Will alerts co-worker Tom early in the first scene, unaware that he addresses his replacement at the firm he's helped build for almost four decades. Will's simple hope is that constructing the city's biggest house for his highly strung but deeply religious wife Lily Dale will help her overcome the peculiar death of their only child. Non-swimmer son Bill's short stroll into a Florida lake has bequeathed a void to the couple's life along with a young companion from Atlanta -- the never-seen title character -- whose calls Will avoids even as he forbids the grieving mother further contact with the visitor. With the opening of the second scene, Lily Dale, unaware of her husband's firing, occupies her place in their large new house, but the hoarding of her grief and the baggage of her relationship with the unseen Atlantan occupy her thoughts. She confides to her step-father Pete that she has funneled to the stranger most of seventy-five thousand dollars accumulated from Will's past Christmas gifts in gratitude for his comforting testimony about her son's religious devotion at the Atlanta boarding house where they were roommates. Also, Lily Dale -- whose very name conjures proper Southern Baptist assemblages, floral hats, and lily-covered caskets -- admits that she has responded with m! onetary pity to her son's friend's stories of life without loving family. She prays Will himself can come to accept the young man from Atlanta as an important part of her son's life. Then Will admits to her the loss of his job. Discovery that Pete's own nest egg cannot replace the money given to the stranger as outright gift (for now Will needs funding to start a new business) -- along with knowledge that the one hundred thousand dollars Will gave their son over the years is no longer accounted for -- undermines the household's tranquillity. "You've been taken for a fool, woman." Will cries on the way to his heart attack. It is the couple's groping toward "truth telling" to one another that gives impetus to the drama, even as they deal with the more mundane matters of recovering financial stability and failing health. Horton Foote's mid-century characters in "The Young Man from Atlanta" embody a "memory" of American Southern propriety that dared not openly allude to situations outside of prevailing social norms. The preservation of privacy and its refusal to examine reality from different perspectives enabled construction of a societal fortress that defied plundering, even if substantial financial and emotional resources were at stake. As long as the resources remained intact -- or seemingly so -- the Will Kidders could continue functioning as they desired, while deluding themselves into the bargain. "Will Kidder" was a perfect name for the old man from Houston.

Rating:
Summary: A Sincere Joy to Read
Review: Horton Foote is everything that today's culture is not -- thoughtful, sensitive, insightful. His works are rich, but can be accessed only by taking the time to listen and reflect, skills not well practiced these days (as evidenced by the dimwitted reviewer of the previous entry). If you cannot see his plays, please read them slowly and carefully (Both 'The Young Man from Atlanta' and 'The Last of the Thortons' are excellent choices) and the rewards will be tremendous.

Rating:
Summary: A Horrible Book. Not At all deserving a Pulitzer Prize.
Review: The Book had a good Plot. The way the characters where represented where horrible. You should have gotten to know them better, the author should have spent more time on the description of the characters personalities, and details of the story then just concentrating on the plot.