With Leonard (Peterson Townsend), Francie (Emma Pfitzer Price) begins to lose her stay-away-from-men resolve.
Francie and her hard-driving dad (Jeb Brown).
Becomes a Woman, Betty Smith’s sort-of warmup to A Tree Grows in Brooklyn that is now premiering at the Mint Theater Company, begins wonderfully. In the sheet music department of a dime store in Brooklyn, circa 1927, 19-year-old Francie Nolan (Emma Pfitzer Price)—she shares the name of the heroine of Smith’s beloved novel, though she’s quite different from the Francie in the book—is working as a song plugger, demonstrating the little-known Jerome Kern–Anne Caldwell “Left All Alone Again Blues,” to the accompaniment of piano-playing pal Florry (Pearl Rhein), while friend/co-worker/roommate Tessie (Gina Daniels) looks on. A lively setting, a swell Kern tune, a trio of sassy girlfriends gabbing about men. A first of three acts that promises a friendly nostalgia trip, in the vein of Smith’s much more famous book. Where are we headed?
Not where we think we are, not at all. After a sunny start, Becomes a Woman turns into melodrama, bordering on soap opera—awkward at times, and revealing of a certain theatrical clumsiness (Smith wrote it in 1930, while she was busily churning out one-acts in the student playwriting program at the University of Michigan), but also bold and daring for the day, and here given the sure-footed production we expect from the Mint.
Francie, unlike her novelistic counterpart, is shy and anxious—”afraid of her family, afraid of her boss, afraid to make a date,” Florry chides. She fends off all suitors, the most persistent of whom is Jimmy O’Neil (Christopher Reed Brown), by repeatedly insisting “I’m busy tonight, and every other night this week, and next week too.” But not when the chain-store owner’s handsome son, Leonard (Peterson Townsend), walks in. As spoiled and useless as a Trump offspring, he’s nevertheless dashing, and soon she’s nervously introducing him to her family.
Which consists of a gruff, bullying Irish-cop dad (Jeb Brown) and a judgmental, unaffectionate mom (Antoinette LaVecchia), plus two younger brothers (Tim Webb, Jack Mastrianni) who are little more than annoyances. Vicki R. Davis’s versatile set turns from the dime store to the Nolans’ shabby Bushwick home, and what transpires there would constitute a series of spoilers; suffice it to say, Francie will be left with the left-all-alone-again blues, and, being a Betty Smith heroine, she’ll rise above her station in life, if not without heartbreak. “First thing you know, you’ll be quite a woman,” opines Tessie’s kindhearted boyfriend, Max (usually Jason O’Connell; Scott Redmond at the performance I saw). “I have become a woman,” she replies, and so she has. After 2½ hours that zip by, the audience is left wondering what’s next for Francie, but we don’t doubt that she’ll face it squarely and enterprisingly.
It’s a harrowing journey, and Price, happily, is thoroughly up to it. But in the sort of old-fashioned play where the stage is crowded with minor players—a cast of 15, some of whom barely show up—there’s ample opportunity for scene stealing. Brown’s Pa Nolan goes from vulgar to funny to terrifying without missing a beat, and Phillip Taratula, in one late scene as an agent trying to sign Francie to a cabaret contract, just about walks off with the play. Daniels, though reading awfully young for Tessie (as does Duane Botté for Leonard’s worldly, calculating father; did the Mint do this on purpose? why?), is enormously sympathetic, and perhaps an early model for the other Francie’s Aunt Sissy.
Smith’s exposition veers toward the bald (“But momma, we’re not going to move out of this house for another two weeks”), and you may not entirely buy some characters’ changes of heart, notably that of Leonard’s dad in the last act. But she’s writing about real, uncomfortable things for the day: Various characters confront infant death, domestic violence, body exploitation, and, especially, the unforgiving intransigence that goes with a devout religious upbringing. There’s much unkindness and flippancy onstage, as well as great humanity and generosity—just like in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.
The large cast does beautifully, and Britt Berke directs with great sympathy. Aside from one black frock for Francie that’s more That Girl than Singin’ in the Rain, Emilee McVey-Lee’s costumes are attractive and apt, and M. Florian Staab’s natural sound design is the sort that makes you lean in to listen closer. Becomes a Woman has its clunky passages, but you’re likely to be swiftly caught up in how the cards are stacked against Francie and how she manages to reshuffle them. And for A Tree Grows in Brooklyn fans—and who isn’t?—it’s a must.
Becomes a Woman runs through March 18 at New York City Center Stage II (131 W. 55th St). Evening performances are at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, with no performances Feb. 28, and March 1 and 8; matinees are at 2:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday. For tickets, visit minttheater.org.
Jimmy O’Neil (Christopher Reed Brown) is one of many wooing Francie. Photographs by Todd Cerveris.
