Four Plays from the Orphans' Home Cycle: Roots in a Parched Ground / Convicts / Lily Dale / The Widow Claire

The Orphans' Home Cycle #1-4

by Horton Foote

Classical in its breadth and scope, Horton Foote’s nine-play Orphans’ Home Cycle begins with a father’s death in a small Texas town at the turn of the century, a loss that sends his son, twelve-year-old Horace Robedaux, on an odyssey through the darkest corners of the heart. Caught in the rift between his father’s and his mother’s families, Horace is separated from what family he has left to spend a horrifying year on a decaying plantation worked by black convicts from a nearby prison. Even more devastating is the reunion with his mother, his sister Lily Dale, and his new stepfather—a reunion that will leave him an orphan in spirit, if not in name.

Within the boundaries of this small society, Horton Foote traces the lineage of loss and regeneration, just as he uses the notes of social hierarchy, economic upheaval, and personal ambition to sound the deeper themes of human struggle and the soul’s heredity.

Genres: Plays, Fiction, Theatre

346 pages, Paperback

First published July 14, 1988

About the author

Albert Horton Foote, Jr. was an American playwright and screenwriter, perhaps best known for his Academy Award-winning screenplays for the 1962 film To Kill a Mockingbird and the 1983 film Tender Mercies, and his notable live television dramas during the Golden Age of Television. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1995 for his play The Young Man From Atlanta.

Reviews

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is poetry of the soul's heredity played. Horton Foote is a writer of great eloquence. I loved 'em. Each and every one of 'em. The first three make a great trilogy and the last is a rueful lament for misplaced first love.

[w gall · Rating 3 out of 5]

Horace, the main character, soldiers on through his formulative years, in different situations and circumstances. But in all four plays others receive the focus for significant parts of the narrative. The plays develops Horace's life; by the end of the fourth play Horace is going to business school. So many pathetic men surround Horace along the way; the women hold things together, though the situation reverses with Horace's sister and her fiance. But it feels like at the end we are left hanging. Horace is a sensible youth, and he is going to learn business. What becomes of him we will never know.

[Bayneeta · Rating 5 out of 5]

Horton Foote is among my favorites, though these short one or two act plays are mostly sad or painful as they follow young Horace Robedaux through his heartbreaking life.

The first, Roots in a Parched Ground, is set in small town Texas where 12 year old Horace and his 10 year old sister Lily Dale live with their grandparents. Their parents are separated and their father is dying.

In the second, Convicts, it's Christmas-time 1904 and Horace has been running the plantation store for his uncle and trying to collect six months of back pay ($11.50) from Mr. Soll the alcoholic plantation owner.

Lily Dale is the third play in the Cycle. It's 1910, Horace is twenty and has gone to visit his mother in Houston. His mother has remarried and his sister Lily Dale lives with them. Lily Dale is spoiled and selfish beyond belief and everytime she opens her mouth, I want to slap her. I hate her.

The Widow Claire is the fourth play. It's 1912, Horace is 22 and about to leave town for a six week business course in Houston. He's been spending time with Claire, 28, widowed, and the mother of two. He's clearly smitten. She's clearly juggling several men and options.

11/6/20: movie version of Convicts with Robert Duvall, Lucas Haas, and James Earl Jones.

There is a movie version, perhaps a Hallmark movie, of Lily Dale which I haven't been able to access. With Mary Stuart Masterson, Stockard Channing, and Sam Shepard

[Annette · Rating 4 out of 5]

Horton Foote first came to my notice through a movie with actor Robert Duvall in the lead-TOMORROW-the struggle of a good person who sees the vileness of human behavior family and town where the family existed. Why so much real nastiness toward a woman and the child she had-comes to the main character's life in which the life of the woman and child are so dreadfully presented-the life force of each comes to nil. Walnut Park Public Library Walnut Groves MS USA had a copy of the script for Tomorrow.
With a biography, I found Foote to be a treasure of a husband and writer.
With this set of plays-triumphant spirit for some/????

[Chambers Stevens · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a great way to get Horton Foote's Orphan's Home Cycle started.
It took me a little while to understand the rhythm of the plays I guess I was expecting more Tennessee Williams.
Foote is not a conventional poet like Williams. The language does not soar.
instead the human spirit soars.
The plays sneak up on you and and when you finally finish the plays your heart is broken.

[Lisa Rogers · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am thrilled to discover Horton Foote plays.