30 PLAYS IN 30 DAYS: Play #3 "Painting Churches" By Tina Howe

 

I have decided for the month of September to read 30 plays in 30 days. It is my belief that, if possible, a play should be read in one sitting to get a better inherent sense of the dramatic arc. Each day, I will write a short post here about the play of the day.

Play #3

Painting Churches by Tina Howe

Originally produced by the Second Stage at the South Street Theatre in 1983, Tina Howe's Painting Churches would go on to win an Obie Award for Distinguished Playwriting (for those who don't know, an Obie is a like a Tony, but for Off-Broadway), and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. I have owned a copy for a long time, but this is my first reading of any of Tina Howe's work.

Howe has said that one of the themes of the play is the coming of age of an artist, and many critics have looked at the play as one might an impressionist painting. Howe herself has said that her enduring love of art was a catalyst for writing the play. 

The play focuses on the aging couple Fanny and Gardner, who are moving out of their home in Boston to live in their smaller summer cottage year round. Their daughter Margaret (Mags) has come to help them pack and move, and to also paint their portrait as she has always wanted to do. 

Howe gives each character moments to shine, and there are some lovely, almost dreamy and dream-like speeches and imagery. At other times, I found certain dialogue stilted (more of the banal back-and-forth stuff), but who am I to argue with an Obie Winner and Pulitzer finalist?

It comes to pass that we learn Gardner, an esteemed poet, is now living with dementia, which is one of the reasons Fanny is moving them to a smaller space where she can keep a better eye on him as he types away at his "new book" which is mostly nonsense. In this regard, I couldn't help but think of this play as a precursor to a work like David Auburn's Proof, though the theme of a once-brilliant parent sinking into a tragic loss of faculties is the only real thematic engine they share. 

A parent with declining faculties is a theme that hits close to home to many (including myself), but Howe doesn't sink into the maudlin. She deals with the subject head on, as Fanny does. It is bold to have Fanny laugh at her incontinent husband, but it is her only defense mechanism. 

As for Mags, she has simply always wanted her parents' approval. To feel seen and validated. Another relatable characteristic, certainly. 

I would be curious to see this play staged---perhaps some of my issues with what felt like clunky dialogue would be evened out in performance. 

Painted Churches was revived in 2012 Off-Broadway, and the wonderful and oh-so-sadly gone "American Playhouse" filmed a production in 1986. Perhaps if one scrounges the net, one might find it somewhere.