The Autumn Garden by Lillian Hellmen at The American Century Theater
Imagine, if you will, a roomful of morose men and women of late middle years. They are too old for optimism or other forms of self-deception, and so pass their time in reading, heavy drinking, and aiming barbed witticisms at each other. It is Louisiana, just after the second war. Into their midst returns a charmed figure from their youth – a stupendously gifted artist who has established a reputation in Europe. He, it turns out, is even worse – and worse off – than they: a bitter, controlling, smarmy lecher and a drunk. He spreads chaos to this listless house, and brings humiliation to people seemingly beyond humiliation. This is the long-forgotten Lillian Hellman play, The Autumn Garden. Hellman thought it was the best thing she ever wrote.
