Tobacco Road

When Tobacco Road closed its seven year New York run, it was playing to capacity. The present revival makes me wonder how the original lasted a month. Starring John J. Martin as Jeeter Lester, this production shows how an amusing book can fail to balance incompetent performances by mediocre actors.

Of course, Jack Kirkland's script did not land here intact. Moral mutilation by the Boston censor cut some choice lines but did not truly serve the ends of prudery. Sacrificing a good show for a bawdy one, the actors uniformly overplayed their parts, accenting suggestive leers, to turn a fairly mature comedy into a long smutty joke.

Since the play hinges on Jeeter, Martin's share of onus for the show's failure is greatest. His role is a delicate one because the curtain scenes in acts two and three feature more drama than comedy. About to lose his land in act two, Jeeter pleads with the new owner to let him stay on; and at the end, his wife dead, he realizes that the land is no longer his. These scenes are maudlin bathos without a sympathetic treatment of Jeeter, and Martin's un-modulated buffoonery throughout the play kills audience feeling for him. His Jeeter is an unbelievable slapstick fool, and his transition to a man desperately fighting for his home is unconvincing.

Perhaps Martin's broad overplay finds partial justification in the job done by his fellow actors. He had to be ridiculous or they would have overshadowed him by their bizarre performances. Elaine Eldridge played the snuff-taking Ada Lester as though she were Helen Hayes doing Victoria. Mixing sweeping gestures, a tremulous voice (representing both infirmity and rage) and stiff posturings, she had a fine time being the Grande Dame of Back County, Georgia.