The Good Daughter
 
By ROBERT L. DANIELS, Variety
Deborah Baum, David Foubert
Deborah Baum plays a Missouri farm girl and David Foubert is a poetic shopkeeper in 'The Good Daughter' at New Jersey Repertory Co.
 
The New Jersey Repertory Co., located in Long Branch on the Jersey shore, is an adventurous year-round company dedicated to the discovery of new playwrights and the presentation of new plays. Its latest, D.W. Gregory's affecting family drama "The Good Daughter," boasts a flavorful, cinematic sweep. It's a sprawling tale of small-town family conflict centering on a prodigal daughter who inadvertently brings despair upon her return home.

Gregory is also the author of the compelling "Radium Girls" (under the name Dolores Whiskeyman), produced by Playwrights Co. of New Jersey three years ago. The playwright is comfortably nestled in William Inge country, where "a well is a hole in the ground" and a young girl nurtures a restless desire to get on a barge and float down river -- not unlike Madge Owens of "Picnic." Gregory even gives her farm family the name of Owen.

Her writing has a naturalistic style and a homey flavor similar to Inge's. Director Jason King Jones has captured the dusty rural climate of northwest Missouri in the days before and after World War I. His deft staging captures Midwestern mood, manners and movements, despite a well-executed but melodramatic finale, when the drama literally opens its floodgates.

Cassie, played by Deborah Baum, is the play's pivotal character, a saucy flirt with a far-away look in her eyes. She pursues big-city glamour only to find despair in an abusive affair with a factory worker. Back on the farm, old wounds are opened on the homestead.

Rachel, acted with whiny vigor by Lee Eckert, is the giggly younger sister, soon disillusioned in a loveless marriage that prompts a harrowing second-act moment. Esther, (Christine Bruno), the mule-headed eldest sister crippled by polio in her youth, is feisty, honest and insightfully wise. Not willing to accept the proposal of Cassie's former beau on the rebound, she rallies with a gallant, independent thrust. Bruno is wonderful.

Davis Hall is the rheumatic, Bible-quoting family patriarch, a widower who works his 150 acres with a team of mules and rejects such modern conveniences as the tractor (he calls it "a mechanical horse"). This may well be the finest perf from Hall, a reliable actor in Jersey productions for the past two decades.

Brian O'Halloran is perfect as the colorless, good-natured gentleman caller, and David Foubert gives a sturdy account of the handsome, poetic storekeeper who struggles for the construction of levees to hold back the flood-works of the mighty Missouri River.

Plaintive musical strains accent scene changes, and period costumes have an old-world-daguerreotype dowdiness that's just right. Fred Kinney's functional set is an immaculate country barn, furnished with accessible stools, ladders and buckets, with a view of golden cornfields. The occasional placement of a dining table or a counter transforms the playing area into the farmhouse or country store. Cunning lighting and sound design bring forth a torrential storm, accompanied by thunder and lightning, that Lear might envy.
 Theater review: 'The Good Daughter' is as good as it gets
Published in the Asbury Park Press 10/16/03

By TOM CHESEK
CORRESPONDENT

It begins with a literal bang -- a thunderclap that gives voice to a temperamental river as it shakes off its man-made shackles and bears down upon a modest Missouri farm.

While friends and family members try desperately to persuade an old man to flee the oncoming floodwaters, the pent-up fury of a long-overdue maelstrom is conjured in a riveting mix of light and sound.

 
THE GOOD DAUGHTER
Presented by the New Jersey Repertory Company
179 Broadway, Long Branch
Through Nov. 16
$30
(732) 229-3166
Like some downstream eddy, "The Good Daughter" draws you in within seconds -- and by the time the action arrives full circle back at the prologue's tense starting point, the audience has been caught up in some pretty strong emotional currents, courtesy of a production whose technical mastery and epic approach stand it among the best things ever offered up by Monmouth County's acclaimed New Jersey Repertory Company.

Currently in its world-premiere engagement at NJ Rep's Lumia Theatre in Long Branch -- and set in the years surrounding America's involvement in World War I -- D.W. Gregory's drama has at its heart a saga of a stern, Scripture-spouting widower and his attempts at ensuring the family's future by marrying off his daughters as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Farmer Ned Owen (Davis Hall) sees his best hope in the verbally arranged betrothal of middle daughter Cassie (Deborah Baum) to an earnest and hard-working man of the soil by the name of Rudy Bird (Brian O'Halloran). It's an arrangement that makes sense to the pragmatic patriarch, given that eldest daughter/mother figure Esther (Christine Bruno) is crippled and hence not marrying material -- whereas baby-of-the-family Rachel (Lea Eckert) is a giggly thing of 15 at the play's start; a child who's at least a year or two away from birthing a future generation of strapping field hands.

As you'd come to expect, there are complications surrounding Ned's simple plan, arising largely from the free-spirited Cassie's disdain for shy, unassuming Rudy -- and her fascination with Matt (Gable-esque David Foubert), a college-educated storekeeper as well as a forward-thinker who's intent on controlling the capricious Missouri River by constructing levees. It's an idea that sits as well with hidebound traditionalist Ned as the prospect of trading in his horse team for a tractor.

Add to this the ever-unpredictable ebb and flow of the river -- an offstage character of sorts that seems to delight in pulling the strings of the scurrying human ants who depend upon it for their most basic needs -- and you've got enough variables at work to make even a man such as Ned begin to doubt the whole concept of "God's will."

This is the sort of play that almost makes you regret taking the customary intermission snack-safari to the lobby; so different are the characters' dynamics by the time the second act lights come up on the autumn of 1924, you feel as though the march of time had passed you by while you waited on line at Lina's Cafe.

Cassie, who had skipped out on her dilemma by the play's midpoint, has returned from the big city claiming an involvement with some unseen Russian prince. A very pregnant, very unhappy Rachel wonders when she'll ever feel anything for her husband Rudy. Esther is being courted by none other than Matt, now something of a pompous small-town Babbitt with a Ford dealership and an eye toward his legacy as a Great Man. Only Ned seems unchanged, albeit as redundant as the "tamed" river that lies just outside -- a river that, as it turns out, still has a few cards left to play.

If things get a tad melodramatic toward the end and if some of the characters' motives remain a bit ambiguous, it's little more than a minor quibble with Gregory's sharply written slice of Americana. The playwright (best known for the well-received "Radium Girls" of a few seasons back) resists turning her people into cornpone caricatures; crafting instead an intelligent script that challenges its cast and crew to deliver something truly extraordinary.

 

PHOTO: BRIAN FERREIRA/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Cast members (from left) Christine Brown, Lea Eckert, Davis Hall and Deborah Baum in a scene from "The Good Daughter" at the New Jersey Repertory Company in Long Branch.
In his first work for NJ Rep, director Jason King Jones rises to the challenge. Everything about "The Good Daughter" is technically first-rate, and for all the elements that could have gone awry -- there are food and fight sequences; running water and rapid-fire scene changes by the bushel -- Mr. Jones shows the touch of a master moviemaker in keeping this eminently watchable production moving with a downright cinematic grace. Special attention must be paid to fellow NJ Rep first-timer Jill Nagle, for her lighting work on a production design that is easily the equal of any big-stage, big-budget offering.

While all six cast members operate at peak performance, Deborah Baum as Cassie remains a standout among the standouts. Whether playing a wounded little-town flirt or putting on some city-slicker airs, Baum maintains a sure hand with a character who's scarcely so sure of who she wants to be. Her scenes with David Foubert -- delightful in the first act, devastating in the second -- are among the best duets you'll ever see in a straight play (can't wait for the musical!).

At first glance, Christine Bruno (she of the diminutive stature and formidably tall resume) appears a no-brainer lock for the role of the stalwart older sister -- but as things unfold, it becomes evident just how crucial this intriguingly commanding actress is to the proceedings. Her Esther is the very essence of pride and clarity, and anyone who tackles this part in the future is going to have to contend with her very long shadow.

Taking a character that the playwright herself described as "not terribly interesting" and turning it into a solid and sympathetic linchpin of this play, Brian O'Halloran continues to show himself as an ensemble actor of remarkable depth and dexterity. While his high-profile calling card remains his charter membership in filmmaker Kevin Smith's stock company, it's always a delight to watch this guy hone his considerable skills here at NJ Rep and numerous other regional stages.

It may be a bit hyperbolic to suggest that "if you see only one show this year. . . ," but anybody who's been looking for a reliable spot to test the waters of the local theater landscape would find that "The Good Daughter" is as good as it gets.

Two River Times
Scene On Stage
By Philip Dorian

Good Acting Highlights "The Good Daughter"
World premiere at New Jersey Repertory Company

Where in the world did New Jersey Rep find three actual sisters to play the sisters in The Good Daughter? Okay, so Deborah Baum, Christine Bruno and Lea Eckert are not really sisters. But the characters they portray are, and five minutes into this play there's no doubt that Cassie (Baum), Esther (Bruno) and Rachel Owen (Eckert) are indeed siblings. The acting by the three, in fact by all six in the cast, is so rich, so humanly real, that any flaws in D.W. Gregory's play are easily dismissed as minor and eminently fixable.

Each of the talented actors nourishes and feeds off the others, and the result is a pleasure to behold. Rarely does a cast mesh so well, so completely. The sisters even begin to look alike. Credit too director Jason King Jones. The sense of family and flow of the play are evidence of his comprehensive vision and sure hand.

It is 1916, just prior to The Great War. On a farm in Northwest Missouri widower Ned Owen (Davis Hall) is concerned with marrying off his three daughters - or at least tow of them. Lovely, sparkling Cassie is being courted by bland, bumbling farmer Rudy Bird (Brian O'Halloran); Rachel is a spunky 16-year old, full of energy and wonder. Esther, in keeping with social values of that time, is considered unmarriageable; handicapped from birth, she has a twisted hip and leg and a resultant awkward gait.

A dashing townie, storekeeper Matt McCall (David Foubert), sweeps Cassie off her feet. He's something of an activist, lobbying for construction of levees along the mighty Missouri River, a concession to progress resisted by staid, religious fundamentalist Ned. (Devastating floods are God's will.)

It wouldn't be fair to reveal key elements of the story, which spans seven years, nor is it necessary. The characters undergo dramatic changes, with relationships weaving in and among one another in ways that are plausible even as they startle. Commitments are made and broken; sacrifices are made and regretted. The family is so well established early that the eventual tensions are more heart-wrenching and even more believable because of that very bond.

Essentially a drama, there's a liberal sprinkling of humor in The Good Daughter. The play Descends into melodrama toward the end (see 'fixable,' above), lbut it survives thanks to the superior acting ensemble. "You can't go home again" is a cliche that here withstands re-examination.

Cassie is well served by Baum's muted beauty. In total control, her marvelous brown eyes sparkle in scenes with Matt and actually go dull with Rudy. She converys the conflict within Cassie, whose willingness to defy one commitment is done in by another. Eckert is perfection as young, perky Rachel, and she meets the challenge of range as Rachel changes significantly. Esther is a paragon of strength and good sense. Bruno plays her without concession to her disability, and any pity one feels for her quickly dissolves. Real sisters develop a sort of code - glances and gestures that communicate without words. Thanks to three outstanding performances, the Owen girls are no exception.

The men as no less effective. Patriarch Ned is severe and unforgiving, but Hall finds the warmth beneath his stern exterior; O'Halloran plays the self-effacing Rudy with restraint, finding kindness and humor in the melancholy man. True-to-himself Matt represents the world outside the farm, and Foubert looks and acts just right. His Matt is smart and sharp, but not a smarty or a sharpy.

Fred Kinney's simple set is particularly effective when characters are silhouetted against the landscaped backdrop. Jill Nagle's lighting enhances every scene, and the costumes (Patricia E. Doherty), from work overalls to farm finery, complete a winning technical trifecta.

On opening night, when producer Gabor Barabas introduced The Good Daughter as "an epic American play," I chucked, certain that he was indulging in hyperbole. A new Grapes of Wrath or You Can't Take it With You in the 65-seat Lumia Theatre? Really. But if 'epic American' means evoking the social, geographical and political realities of a bygone era, then I owe Gabe an apology, because The Good Daughter does just that. If this seems a bit overblown, so be it. See the play and judge for yourself.

TriCity News Theatre Review
by Don Clarke

D.W. Gregory has written a classically American play that really digs deeply into the roots of our sociaty and sociatal expectations. Set in the period from 1916 to 1924, The Good Daughter, premieres in our own little Long Branch.

The play focuses on the lives of three sisters and their very traditional father, all of whom live on a farm. The first act is a time-honored portrayal, in the style of Thornton Wilder, well written, somewhat predictable, yet still intensely interesting. Each of the daughters has a personality; Cassie, the willful one who wants to see the world; Esther, the disabled girl who is limited by her disability (or by her family) and who finds great determination (or pig-headedness); and Rachel, the impulsive youngster.

In the second act, the scene moves forward seven years. Their lives have changed, and the girls have as well. The play is far more compelling and, certainly, less predictable. The author, Gregory, explores the notion of sanctuary and, at the same time, the stifling nature of family. She also examines consequences and responsibility. Some of the conclusions are troubling but the play is hopeful.

Deborah Baum plays daughter Cassie. She makes the transtition from a headstrong egoist, to a more mature and saddened adult, beautifully. Christine Bruno plays the disable sister Esther. Her personality development and growing discontent are captivating. In life she does have a disability-which must enhance her interpretation. Lea Eckert plays Rachel. Her transformation from tomboy to wife is fascinating.

Davis Hall plays the father, a good man trying to make sense of a changing world by relying on old-fashioned values. David Foubert plays one of the suitors. He may be a modern young man - or Cassie has idealized him. It is a tough role, which he plays well. Brian O'Halloran is a possible predictable, very determined suitor. All the roles are well developed and the players sparkle.

This could be the play of the season.

One about the farmer's daughter: An intimately staged family epic premieres at NJ Rep

Published in the Asbury Park Press 10/10/03

By TOM CHESEK
Correspondent

The history of American arts and letters is packed with images of the family farmer as heroic figure; a tower of strength as apt to take some courageous "High Noon" stand as he is willing to spout some improbably stentorian monologue.

 
THE GOOD DAUGHTER
A play by D.W. Gregory
New Jersey Repertory Company's Lumia Theatre
179 Broadway, Long Branch
Performances through Nov. 16
$30
(732) 229-3166
Out in the fields worked by the likes of Ned Owen, however, there's little room for heroic posturing when there are barely enough hours in the day to eke out a life of basic subsistence.

Ned, the God-fearing widower whose family is at the center of "The Good Daughter" -- D.W. Gregory's drama opening tonight in its world premiere run at New Jersey Repertory Company's Lumia Theatre in Long Branch -- is a man who appears to have spent his life in a constant state of struggle against forces beyond his control.

From the capricious currents of the Missouri River to the sociological tides that roil an increasingly industrialized America on the eve of the First World War, this native Midwesterner finds the foundations of his world in danger of eroding away; a situation that's not helped one bit by the tensions that simmer underneath his own roof.

As the good Lord has seen fit to bless the Owen household only with female children, Ned sets about assuring his family's survival in a manner befitting a patriarch of some hundred years ago -- namely, marrying off each of the young women to a husband that can furnish the necessities of life, if not necessarily love.

That's easier said than done, as all three of the Owen girls pose their own problems with the traditional procedure. While Esther has assumed much of her late mother's duties about the house, the strong and steady eldest daughter seems destined for a life of spinsterhood, having been born with a birth defect. The beautiful but contrary Cassie is a free spirit whose resistance to an arranged betrothal sends her running straight into the arms of a college-educated merchant's son and self-styled activist.

 

BOB BIELK photo

Cast members (from left) Deborah Baum, David Foubert and Brian O'Halloran rehearse a scene from "The Good Daughter," being staged by the New Jersey Repertory Company in Long Branch.
Meanwhile, the youngest daughter Rachel, a dreamer of some 15 years of age, is the one most apt to appease her father -- although precisely whether she is the "good daughter" of the title is open to interpretation.

Speaking from her Washington home, the author describes her play (first composed as her thesis work in 1995, and revised extensively prior to its NJ Rep debut as a script-in-hand reading) as "pretty close to being an ensemble piece, with six pretty good parts."

Maintaining that "the overall story is more of a romance," Gregory puts the focus on Cassie and her relationships to her father as well as to Matt, the man who would endeavor to build a levee alongside the community.

"To Cassie, Matt represents the outside world; something she finds intriguing . . . while at the same time, he represents a lot of things that Ned finds distasteful," the playwright observes. "You can see it as Matt trying to control nature, while Ned is trying to control his family."

Veteran watchers of New Jersey's professional theater scene may recognize Gregory's work from a slightly different nom de plume. Working as Dolores Whiskeyman, the prolific playwright and "recovering critic" authored the acclaimed "Radium Girls," an award-winning historical drama (based on the devastating fate suffered by the female factory workers of the 1920s-era Radium Watch Dial company of Orange). Developed and workshopped during the author's residency with the Madison-based Playwrights Theatre of New Jersey, "Radium Girls" was recently put into print by Dramatic Publishing. So was "The Good Girl is Gone," a black comedy presented by NJ Rep last year as part of the troupe's Monday-evening reading series.

As for the crack about being a recovering critic, it was her stint as a play reviewer for the Washington Post that helped Dolores cultivate some useful contacts in regional theater circles, although, she says, "it was getting to the point where I couldn't maintain a relationship with certain theatrical companies and still be an objective critic." These days, the working wordsmith supplements her artistic endeavors by editing articles on state tax law -- a gig she describes as "kind of fun, actually."

Jason King Jones directs a cast that features Davis Hall as Ned, with Deborah Baum as Cassie, Christine Bruno as Esther and Lea Eckert as Rachel. David Foubert plays college-boy firebrand Matt McCall, with Brian O'Halloran (the cult-favorite star of such Kevin Smith film productions as "Clerks" and a solid character player on area stages) appearing as the decent, hardworking (but "not terribly exciting") fellow farmer and prospective husband Rudy Bird.

Featuring set, costume and lighting designs respectively by Fred Kinney, Patricia Doherty and Jill Nagle, "The Good Daughter" opens this weekend and continues with performances at 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays and at 2 p.m. Sundays through Nov. 16. For reservations and information, call (732) 229-3166.

from the Asbury Park Press

Published on October 10, 2003

A Very Good Daughter
World Premieres at New Jersey Repertory

by Bob Rendell

A rewarding new play awaits theatergoers at the New Jersey Repertory Company’s Lumia Theatre in Long Branch. Just how good is it? It is certainly good enough for me to strongly recommend it to anyone interested in a multifaceted, thought provoking traditional American play which stirs echoes of Eugene O’Neill.

The world premiere play The Good Daughter is by D.W. Gregory. To quote the author’s description of the setting, “the action takes place in a farming community in northwest Missouri, not far from the Iowa line – a part of the country where change comes slowly and at a great price.” The first act spans a period of little more than a year, beginning in the summer of 1916.

Daughter’s plot and themes are classic, having been employed by playwrights throughout the history of theatre. They provide the potential for scope and power, and for the examination of the human condition, making them irresistible to writers of vision.

 
Good Daughter
Deborah Baum and David Foubert
The play’s protagonists are widowed and embittered farmer Ned Owens, his three daughters and two young men who play pivotal roles in their lives.

 

The daughters are of marriageable age. Esther, the oldest, has been hardened and worn down from the rigors of having to care for the home and her younger sisters since the early demise of their mother. She is physically handicapped (this is manifested in a severe limp), and it is assumed by her family that she will never marry.

Middle sister Cassie conveys an aura of intelligence and an interest in the world outside her community which set her apart from her father and sisters. These attributes contribute to her disinterest in her suitor, tenant farmer and neighbor Rudy Bird. Rudy is a decent and practical man, with a plan to acquire land and partner with Cassie's father as a farmer. He is awkward and diffident in his courtship of Cassie.

If this were not enough, Cassie falls in love with another friend of her father, Matt McCall. He has returned from college to his parents and their general store. Bright, sophisticated, forward thinking and ambitious, he is clearly the right match for Cassie.

Ned Owens betroths Cassie to Rudy and is unrelenting in his insistence that she marry him. Matt enlists in the Army at the outbreak of The Great War and refuses to run away with Cassie (Matt’s last two actions would read better and play better if their order were reversed). Cassie runs away from her home and family, and a marriage which she cannot accept. Youngest sister Rachel (I bet that you thought that I had forgotten her) accepts her father’s dictum that she marry Rudy in place of her sister. End of act one.

When the curtain rises for act two, it is the autumn of 1924. Seven years after having run away, Cassie, the prodigal daughter, returns home. As is the norm in most such cases, Cassie has come home because she is in big trouble. There is an overabundant plot here as there is in act one. However, for most of the second act, the work becomes more resonant and emotionally satisfying as each of the six characters evolves believably in significant ways. I will not say more.

The entire play has a backdrop of the mechanization of agriculture, flood, drought, and a growing ability to bend nature to our will.

If I have properly succeeded in conveying the engrossing evening of theatre being presented at this tiny 60-odd seat home of the New Jersey Rep by The Good Daughter, you will want to hear the balance of this narrative from D.W. Gregory and her talented presenters themselves.

During the first act, I felt that some of the Missouri farm accents were overemphasized. While I do not doubt their authenticity, the accents tend to make the play, along with its humor and dense exposition, feel too broadly drawn. However, when the richness of Gregory’s characterizations becomes more evident in the second act, the entire cast probes deeply to convey them.

Deborah Baum is outstanding in portraying the return of the prodigal daughter. She captures Cassie’s pretense of superiority and her ironic disdain for those she left behind. She then convincingly portrays her moments of truth.

Christine Bruno portrays the hopefulness and humanity in Esther without softening the pain and bitterness which have caused her to be abrasive. She honestly earns the understanding of the viewer for her Esther.

To round out D.W. Gregory’s three sisters, Lea Eckert strongly conveys Rachel’s maturing realization that the needs that she has as an individual are more crucial to her than fulfilling her family niche.

Davis Hall is convincing as Ned Owen. As written, Owen is a kind of one note, unreasonably stubborn individual who does not engage our sympathy. Brian O’Halloran as Rudy and David Foubert as Matt make solid contributions. It is difficult to watch Mr. Foubert here and not think of Clark Gable (or was that Rhett Butler?).

Within the realm of the possible, New Jersey Rep has succeeded admirably in conveying the scope of the work. Director Jason King Jones brings solid work from his cast, maintains an appropriately brisk pace, and achieves a smoothness and clarity of focus that is quite remarkable under the circumstances.

The concept for the basic set is a barn with an open door looking out onto a field. As the action shifts mostly to various rooms in the residence and around the farm, the placement of the barn door shifts, and various items of furniture decorate the set. We may not always be certain just what part of the house we are in, but the design insures that a sense of the farm is always there, and the look and feel seem just right. Credit the solid design work of Fred Kinney. And the lighting and sound design (and effects) by Jim Nagle and Merek Royce Press, respectively, are terrific.

Daughter feels overwritten. It may need less plotting and more room to breathe. The event leading to the first act curtain is presented in a very contrived fashion to produce a surprise twist which undermines Gregory’s seriousness of purpose. The climax is sudden and unsatisfying. However, these reservation are significantly outweighed by the play’s virtues.

Author D.W. Gregory is terrific at conveying detail and nuance in her characters. Five of the six display extraordinarily organic growth and/or change. It is not that we are told of changed circumstance or just have to accept it as a given. Additionally, the play is loaded with ideas which arise organically from the plot and characters. It also plays against a rich canvas of our history.

The Good Daughter by D.W. Gregory; directed by Jason King Jones; Cast: Deborah Baum (Cassie Owen); Christine Bruno (Esther Owen); Lea Eckert (Rachel Owen); David Foubert (Matt McCall); Davis Hall (Ned Owen); Brian O’Halloran (Rudy Bird).

THE GOOD DAUGHTER
By: Simon Saltzman

Long Branch - Whether it has been tales from the Brothers Grimm, plays by Shakespeare, Chekhov and Wendy Wasserstein, or countless novels and film scenarios, the conflict and jealousies between sisters has remained a compelling literary and dramatic staple through the ages. In "The Good Daughter," now having its world premiere at New Jersey Repertory Company, playwright D.W. Gregory hasn't broken any new ground in the familiar genre as much as she has turned the melodramatic soil just enough to make her characters appear fresh and vital.

Set in a farming community in Northwest Missouri, the play's action occurs between 1917 and 1924 and mostly in and around the modest homestead of Ned Owen (Davis Hall), a stolid God-fearing widower left with three daughters to raise. Here, Ned's determination to keep the farm going and survive the ever unpredictable and threatening Missouri River is as pressing as his desire to marry off his daughters to the first man able to provide them with a good home and the basic necessities.

Unsurprisingly, the daughters, the men in their lives, not to mention the river, have their own motivations. Under Jason King Jones' sturdy un-fussy direction, the deluge of romance, regrets, recriminations and rebellious behavior that propel "The Good Daughter," takes an almost retro dramatic course. But it is a course that, for all its contrived arteries, is precisely and skillfully constructed.

The eldest 20 year-old Cassie (Deborah Baum) is pretty and openly discontent with her life on the farm and unwilling to comply with her father's wish that she marry Rudy Bird (Brian O'Halloran), an awkwardly amorous neighboring farmer for whom she has no feelings. More conciliatory toward the house rules imposed by the somewhat stiff-necked Ned is Esther (Christine Bruno), the middle sister born with a physical defect who has, nevertheless, assumed many of the chores of her late mother. She is also, despite her father's resignation that she is not likely to marry, capable of harboring romantic notions. These are secretly directed to Matt McCall (David Foubert), the dashing college graduate and civic-minded activist son of a local shop owner. Matt has recently come back to his hometown and set as his primary goal persuading Ned and the townsfolk to build a levee to help protect the community.

Cassie's infatuation and open flirting with the equally rebellious Matt doesn't go unnoticed by the youngest, 15 year-old Rachel (Lea Eckert), whose sweetness is tempered by her loyalty to her father. A scheme, hatched between Cassie and Rachel to promote a romance between Esther and Rudy, produces an unexpected consequence. This is no less unexpected than the reason Cassie leaves home after Matt decides to enlist in the Army. It is seven years later when Cassie returns home amid a flood of mixed emotions from the family and a real flood of the Missouri River.

The play has a very fine cast able to provide the subtler and more pronounced changes their characters undergo. Baum's change from a free-spirit to a sadder and wiser Cassie is as impressive as is Bruno's blossoming as a self-realized Esther. Eckert is touching as she reflects Rachel's poignant transition from familial stability into emotional instability, the result of a loveless marriage. It is as revelatory a turn as the ones O'Halloran and Foubert are required to make as more mature and self-made men. Hall is excellent as Ned who finds his fate is determined as much by a good daughter (which one I won't reveal) as it is by his steadfast trust in God's deliverance. A torrential rain storm (a real curtain of rain), with thunder, lightning (lighting design by Jill Nable and sound by Merek Royce Press) is impressive as is designer Fred Kinney's barn-like structure that adapts to various locales. The fine production values serve this good and commendably involving play.

It is important to note that D. W. Gregory previously wrote plays as Dolores Whiskeyman. Under that nom de plume, "Radium Girls," an award-winning drama based on the actual events surrounding the fate of female factory workers at the Radium Watch Dial Company of Orange, N. J. during the 1920s, had its premiere two years ago at Playwrights Theater of New Jersey where it received enthusiastic notices. Other work by Gregory has been under development at both P. T. N. J. and at New Jersey Repertory Company.
'The Good Daughter' has potential to be even better

Monday, October 13, 2003

BY PETER FILICHIA
Star-Ledger Staff

There's a good deal of water -- but some soap, too -- in "The Good Daughter," D.W. Gregory's new play at New Jersey Repertory Company in Long Branch.

The playwright does well when she deals with the river, rain and floods, and the convincing characters who must cope with them. But Gregory's plot contains too many soap opera touches.

These melodramatic moments don't fatally hurt her drama, however. Gregory rallies with a final curtain that's both wise and moving.

With solid acting and almost as potent direction by Jason King Jones, the adjective that Gregory uses for "Daughter" is the same as one that can describe this evening in the theater.

But it could be a good deal more than good. Given that this is its first production, there's reason to believe that "The Good Daughter" can be very good someday.

At first glance, the play resembles "King Lear," for it involves a landowner father with three daughters. One difference is that this takes place in 1916 Missouri. Another is that Ned Owen isn't thinking about retirement. He sees greater days for his farm -- if only he can get his daughter Cassie to marry Rudy, a sincere young man who's willing to work hard.

Pretty Cassie is Ned's ace trump. Esther walks with a limp, and Rachel is rather ungainly. But Cassie doesn't love Rudy. She's smitten with merchant Matt McCall, a most serious man who holds dear his values about responsibility and community. He's the one who keeps telling Ned he'll lose the farm to flood if he doesn't take precautions. But Ned says, "Only thing you can do is put your faith in the Lord."

Cassie is so superior when she's with the fumbling and nervous Rudy -- only to become the jittery one when she's with McCall. After Gregory convinces an audience that these two are wrong for each other, she proceeds to have them fall in love. For McCall doesn't have his feet so much on the ground that he can't be swept off them when Cassie bats her eyelashes the right way.

Rudy is devastated, and so is Esther, because she loves him, and he doesn't notice. (See where it's getting sudsy?) Gregory does have a masterstroke at the end of the first act, but King doesn't stage it in a way that gets the maximum impact from it. At the same time, Gregory errs by giving short shrift to Esther. The playwright doesn't show what she's feeling until much later -- and much too late.

As Ned, Davis Hall is sleepy-eyed and world-weary, but not too exhausted to show that he truly loves his daughters and fiercely wants the best for them. David Foubert has a Clark Gable-Rhett Butler dash as McCall, but staunchly shows the seriousness of purpose that's so vital to the character. Brian O'Halloran -- of "Clerks" fame -- grows wonderfully from the insecure young man to the responsible breadwinner who always tries to do his best in the face of circumstances that would have defeated many other men.

He's not the only one who deftly shows how seven years can change a person. Christine Bruno's Esther, Lea Eckert's Rachel and Deborah Baum's Cassie all display a sparkle in the first act that's deadened by the events of the second. They perform beautifully as a unit, too, and embody the essence of sisterly affection.

And which of the three is the good daughter of the title? Gregory slyly lets the audience make up its own mind about this.