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Dividing the Estate
In Foote's dark comedy, matriarch Stella Gordon is dead set against the parceling out of her clan's land, despite the financial woes brought on by the oil bust of the 1980s. In the course of the play, the power of petty self-interest and long-held resentments makes even painful compromise an elusive goal.
67 pages, Paperback
First published July 28, 2010
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About the author
Horton Foote
123 books48 followersAlbert Horton Foote, Jr. was an American playwright and screenwriter, perhaps best known for his Academy Award-winning screenplays for the 1962 film To Kill a Mockingbird and the 1983 film Tender Mercies, and his notable live television dramas during the Golden Age of Television. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1995 for his play The Young Man From Atlanta.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
April 3, 2016
This was my second favorite of the three plays I read in Three Plays: Dividing the Estate / The Trip to Bountiful / The Young Man from Atlanta. This one is a dark comedy and is laugh out loud funny. My favorite was The Trip to Bountiful (bittersweet and very character-driven). Though also very good, my least favorite was the very sad and serious The Young Man from Atlanta (his Pulitzer Prize winner).
December 6, 2022
Subtle, it's not: the title tells us what it's about (and gets repeated, by one character or another, umpteen times during the proceedings). Stella Gordon is the 85-year-old matriarch of a large estate in Harrison, Texas (the fictional Gulf Coast town, not far from Houston, where many of Foote's plays take place). She lives with her elder daughter, Lucille; Lucille's son, Son, who runs the family's farming business; and an old black retainer, Doug, who at 91 has been with the family since Stella was five. Stella's son Lewis also lives here; her youngest child, Mary Jo, lives in Houston with her husband Bob and two twentysomething daughters. It's 1987, the year that oil prices plummeted from $38 to $11/barrel, crippling much of the economy in this part of Texas, and the Gordons are feeling the effects.
Which is why pretty much all of them can't stop talking--pro or con--about dividing the estate. Mary Jo leads the charge; her husband is in financial difficulty and she's tired of having to borrow against her future inheritance (she's already $300,000 in the hole). Lewis needs money, too, because he squanders his allowance on boozing and gambling on a regular basis. Only Lucille and Son (both on salary; Stella runs the tightest of ships) are against dividing the estate--and of course Stella is opposed to such an occurrence ever happening, even after she's dead.
It's the setup for outsized tragedy and comedy, and both come to this family (and to us) in gigantic doses. The play feels light in Act One, as if to prepare us for a more serious conclusion; but Foote surprises us with merry black comedy instead that just rolls on and on. The characterizations and the dialogue are so full and vivid that the mercenary quality of pretty much everybody on hand is tempered by Foote's good humor.
Which is why pretty much all of them can't stop talking--pro or con--about dividing the estate. Mary Jo leads the charge; her husband is in financial difficulty and she's tired of having to borrow against her future inheritance (she's already $300,000 in the hole). Lewis needs money, too, because he squanders his allowance on boozing and gambling on a regular basis. Only Lucille and Son (both on salary; Stella runs the tightest of ships) are against dividing the estate--and of course Stella is opposed to such an occurrence ever happening, even after she's dead.
It's the setup for outsized tragedy and comedy, and both come to this family (and to us) in gigantic doses. The play feels light in Act One, as if to prepare us for a more serious conclusion; but Foote surprises us with merry black comedy instead that just rolls on and on. The characterizations and the dialogue are so full and vivid that the mercenary quality of pretty much everybody on hand is tempered by Foote's good humor.
May 10, 2021
I liked this play, although it is kind of a sad end to the HFU (Horton Foote Universe). Harrison, TX has seen better days and so have these characters. I'm not sure if there is an audience for a play like this one anymore, at least right now. It would be an awkward one to produce. Still in a pandemic where millions of people have lost loved ones, I'm not sure anyone would want to see "grandma's dying, who's got the will?" kind of theatre. It's a black comedy, which I almost always appreciate, but_not_right_now.
December 1, 2017
This is a funny play, yet it is sad at the same time. I hate to see families torn apart by greed.
Characters: Son: grandson of Stella, we never learn his name. He is called Son by everyone. He manages the estate. His wife Olive Louise left him and then died in a car accident with a drunken man three months later. He was 18 when his father died & he dropped out of college to manage the estate. (40)
Pauline: Son's schoolteacher girlfriend
Lucille - Son's mother, who lives on the estate with him, her mother and her brother. Her husband Charlie is dead.
Stella Gordon: the matriarch, who refuses to divide the estate and plays the family members against each other. She usually caves to their requests eventually. She hated her husband, Raymond (10) for creating children "all up and down the county, black and white." (20) She dies (49) at age 82, by my calculations, although there is an error that I will mention later.
Mildred: the cook
Cathleen: young housekeeper. She is going to junior college.
Doug Alexander (46): manservant. 92. Has been living in the house since he was 5. Was taught to read, write and memorize the multiplication tables by Stella when he was 22 and she was 12. (12) He dies. (38)
Lewis: Son of Stella. Never could hold a job, gambles, and owes $200,000 to the estate. Is fooling around with a high school girl and needs $10,000 to pay off her father. (28)
Mary Jo: Daughter of Stella: Lives in Houston in a house that is foreclosed on (59). Owes $300,000 to the estate.
Emily: daughter of Mary Jo - marriage annulled after a week. (8)
Sissi: Daughter of Mary Jo- divorced last year (8) and engaged to be married.
Bob: Mary Jo's husband. Wants the estate to be divided because he is a realtor and hasn't sold a house yet this year.
Great-grandfather was a Yankee carpetbagger. (44)
Error: Doug says that he remembers when Stella was born (10) and that she was 12 when she taught him to read and he was 22, but she says that she was six when Doug and Henrietta (his mother) came to live in the house out back. (47)
Irene Ratliff: Lewis' high school girlfriend that works at Whataburger. (62) Parents approve of them dating now that they think that Lewis is going to inherit a lot of money. They attend Stella's funeral with her.
Conclusion: the estate will be in probate for at least a year. They are going to scrape together the money to pay the estate taxes, by all living in the big house. They will all lose their allowances and will need to get jobs for the first time in their lives. Mary Jo and Sissi are the most upset by this. Mary Jo does not want to live in the big house, and Sissi wails about what kind of wedding she is going to be able to have now.
Characters: Son: grandson of Stella, we never learn his name. He is called Son by everyone. He manages the estate. His wife Olive Louise left him and then died in a car accident with a drunken man three months later. He was 18 when his father died & he dropped out of college to manage the estate. (40)
Pauline: Son's schoolteacher girlfriend
Lucille - Son's mother, who lives on the estate with him, her mother and her brother. Her husband Charlie is dead.
Stella Gordon: the matriarch, who refuses to divide the estate and plays the family members against each other. She usually caves to their requests eventually. She hated her husband, Raymond (10) for creating children "all up and down the county, black and white." (20) She dies (49) at age 82, by my calculations, although there is an error that I will mention later.
Mildred: the cook
Cathleen: young housekeeper. She is going to junior college.
Doug Alexander (46): manservant. 92. Has been living in the house since he was 5. Was taught to read, write and memorize the multiplication tables by Stella when he was 22 and she was 12. (12) He dies. (38)
Lewis: Son of Stella. Never could hold a job, gambles, and owes $200,000 to the estate. Is fooling around with a high school girl and needs $10,000 to pay off her father. (28)
Mary Jo: Daughter of Stella: Lives in Houston in a house that is foreclosed on (59). Owes $300,000 to the estate.
Emily: daughter of Mary Jo - marriage annulled after a week. (8)
Sissi: Daughter of Mary Jo- divorced last year (8) and engaged to be married.
Bob: Mary Jo's husband. Wants the estate to be divided because he is a realtor and hasn't sold a house yet this year.
Great-grandfather was a Yankee carpetbagger. (44)
Error: Doug says that he remembers when Stella was born (10) and that she was 12 when she taught him to read and he was 22, but she says that she was six when Doug and Henrietta (his mother) came to live in the house out back. (47)
Irene Ratliff: Lewis' high school girlfriend that works at Whataburger. (62) Parents approve of them dating now that they think that Lewis is going to inherit a lot of money. They attend Stella's funeral with her.
Conclusion: the estate will be in probate for at least a year. They are going to scrape together the money to pay the estate taxes, by all living in the big house. They will all lose their allowances and will need to get jobs for the first time in their lives. Mary Jo and Sissi are the most upset by this. Mary Jo does not want to live in the big house, and Sissi wails about what kind of wedding she is going to be able to have now.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 17, 2017
Funny yet sad. The script didn't flow as easily as some other plays that I've read (perhaps because it all takes place in one room and there are many characters.)
March 30, 2012
The first Horton Foote play I've ever read. I'm interested in writers who spend a lot of time building one world over the course of their careers, and the Texas world Foote built is clearly on display here, from the petty jealousies that rock a family, to the economic realities that will bring their oil kingdom down.
Overall, it's hard to tell what this play builds to; it's Chekhovian in its lack of accomplishment by any one character. And the last second arrival of a new character distracted me, rather than gave me clarity. But the play is worth looking at, if only to read a man who's mastered his own voice over the course of what was a very long career.
Overall, it's hard to tell what this play builds to; it's Chekhovian in its lack of accomplishment by any one character. And the last second arrival of a new character distracted me, rather than gave me clarity. But the play is worth looking at, if only to read a man who's mastered his own voice over the course of what was a very long career.
May 22, 2012
Not very memorable, actually.
August 23, 2016
This was a tough play to read, because it reminded me quite a lot of my family. The dialogue sure rang true.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews