Delightfully Tawdry ‘Another Part of the Forest’

The trials andtribulations of the Hubbard family occupy AnotherPart of the Forest, American Players Theatre’s fourth seasonal offering,which opened on a suitably steamy, damp Saturday night. Love and honor are inshort supply in Lillian Hellman’s Southern Gothic tale, which takes place inpost-Civil War Alabama.At times it’s anyone’s guess who will remain standing at the end of thethree-hour potboiler.

Marcus Hubbard(Jonathan Smoots) is a war profiteer with suspicious affiliations and genteelpretensions who can barely leave his comely daughter Regina (Tiffany Scott) alone. Wife Lavinia(Sarah Day) seems to live in a world somewhere outside of reality, while sonsBenjamin (Marcus Truschinski) and Oscar (Eric Parks) spend time hatching theirown alternately devious and dull-witted schemes to tap Papa’s fortune. Muchlike life, few get what they want, but a truncated version of the familysurvives.

As always, strongperformances carry this delightfully tawdry narrative. Sarah Day leads the way,capturing Lavinia’s borderline madness in her trademark style. As Marcus,Smoots mixes bravado with brittleness, while Scott’s Regina wraps herself in a flirtatious cocoonthat will too soon fade. Susan Shunk tugs the heartstrings as Birdie Bagtry,daughter of a family fallen on hard times, and Tracy Michelle Arnold has fartoo much fun as Laurette Sincee, a prostitute who is the object of Oscar’saffections.

Another Part of the Forest isn’t the noblest of productions, but everyone’sultimate undoing makes for an interestingly devious and slightly deviant ride.