By Harry Haun
12 May 2009

Playwright Romulus Linney addressed Horton Foote, The Mischievous Critic. "Behind the sleepy looks and nods, he missed nothing," he said. "By simply closing his eyes, always gracious, without a word, he was a funny and effective critic, and we laughed a lot. At one time we were listening to a gentleman read from his work, and we could tell this gentleman was not for us. When it was over, I said, 'Well, Horton, we've got to go say something. I always say, 'Enjoyed it,' and try to get out of there.' Horton said, 'Well, you could say, 'You've done it again.'"

Edward Albee felt Foote would be delighted that "an extraordinary miracle has happened on Broadway this year" — namely, well-attended revivals of Eugene Ionesco's Exit the King and Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot — and "if it makes Horton happy, it makes me happy." Albee also cited an Off-Broadway miracle: "I hope this production of Thornton Wilder's Our Town, which is a true, tough, unsentimental, serious production of this great play will make it a little bit easier for audiences to understand the wonderful, wonderful plays of Horton Foote."

James Houghton, who devoted an entire Signature season to Foote, was last to speak. "I just have to say Horton's smiling somewhere because he'd have loved this afternoon," he said. "This is what Horton lived for. He had a love affair with the theatre for over 80 years, and those of us who were blessed enough to spend a few blips in that 80 years with him will live forever in those memories."

He recalled during the run of Foote's play, The Last of the Thorntons, that the elderly Anne Pitoniak slipped and broke her hip right before curtain. "We don't have understudies because we're Off-Broadway so I said to Horton, 'What are we going to do? Do you want to do it?' In a flash, he said, 'Absolutely!' I think that's the last appearance he made as an actor on the stage in New York. The audience loved it.

"When Horton and I were trying to put together that production, I went down to visit him in Wharton, and he walked me through a cemetery just jam-packed with family, distant relatives, second cousins, third cousins, and he was introducing me to every character in his plays. I remember that moment so vividly resonating with how that cemetery was full of life, full of the things that make a rich life.

"Several weeks ago, many of us gathered in Wharton to lay Horton to rest in that very cemetery. And, as you might imagine, the gods cooperated. There were torrential rains and black umbrellas and, practically, floods on the streets of Wharton. The funeral itself had to be delayed. But I walked that cemetery again before I left, and I thought of Horton in the good company of his characters."

Fittingly, Houghton let the man of these two hours have the last say, via a video that Signature made to mark Foote's 90th birthday. "At 90 years, it's rather comfortable," the playwright conceded. "I don't have the panic I used to get and think, 'Well, when is it going to happen?' At that time, I was very curious because I'd felt, in some ways, I was an off-horse, that I had this obsessive interest in the South — my South — but I thought, 'What would I have done if I had never had this? What would I have done?' And a lot of people would have said, 'Well, you've been a bloody fool, y'know. You don't give yourself to something as chancy as theatre,' but I never — I never . . ."

The sentence stays unfinished, and there's a quick cut to him singing "Blessed Assurance," which Betty Buckley had rendered earlier. Foote's rendition was less assured. "Some of the words I didn't get right, but…"

The words are left hanging in the air, as if he has more to say, and the audience at the Beaumont rose as one to give Horton Foote one last, sustained, standing ovation.

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