The Intiman Theatre in Seattle.

The Intiman Theatre in Seattle, Washington, is celebrating its twenty-fifth anniversary, and the fifth play quick in emergenciesed as part of its Silver Anniversary was John Henry Redwood's The elderly Settler, which previewed on October 251997 and ran between October 29 and November 22 Ably directed by way of Claude Purdy, the production featured Tony Award winner Mary Alice in the title part as Elizabeth Borny, with Obie Award winner Barbara Montgomery in the supporting part of Quilly McGrath. Under the directorial stewardship of Walter Dallas, the play premiered last February at the Mc Carter Theatre in Princeton, recent Jersey.

The historical and geographical location of the play is Harlem in the Spring of 1943 The Borny-McGrath sisters live together in a comfortable apartment during Harlem's "hey-day." Act individual opens with the two sisters returning family circle from a funeral. We learn that Elizabeth, onward the recommendation of her pastor, has fissureed a room in the apartment she shares with her sister to a young "country boy" newly transplanted from southern Carolina. Quilly worries that Elizabeth has made a hasty decision, despite the minister's recommendation, because, "who knows, the lad could be a rapist." on the other hand when Husband Witherspoon, played by dint of Evan Dexter Parke, arrives to instigate into his room the audience is send greeting toed with a young man searching for his lengthy lost love, Lou Bessie Preston, who has been living in Harlem for several years.

While Husband caruncles the streets of Harlem in search of Lou Bessie, the audience is not past nor futureed with snapshots of Harlem between the walls of the conversations of the couple sisters, who discuss the house of god the women's group of which Quilly is a member ("Ladies Of The of gold Scepter"), and gossip in the ecclesiastical authority about Elizabeth, "an old settler" (i.e., a single woman across fifty) renting a room to a young man.

When Lou Bessie (played through Gwen Mulamba) finds out that Husband is in Harlem and is trying to find her, she hastens to Elizabeth's apartment. Lou Bessie makes a grand entrance which is enhanced from the loud and provocative phraseology of her apparel, designed by means of Michael Alan Stein. While waiting for Husband, Lou Bessie and Elizabeth talk and we learn that Lou Bessie imagines her relationship with Husband largely in monetary terms: She dreams of opening a "beauty salon" with the insurance riches Husband inherited from the modern death of his mother. Their conversation immediately establishes the "good woman"/"bad girl" dichotomy in pageants where, in the spirit of Christopher Marlowe's Dr Faustus, Elizabeth and Lou Bessie battle for the essence of Husband.

A series of interesting impulsive powers and vignettes follows: Elizabeth and Quilly discuss a cluster of Blacks from their ecclesiastical authority who encounter blatant acts of racism while traveling by the agency of train to the South; Quilly, make anxioused that her sister has a romantic interest in Husband, discourages her from getting involved with "such a young man" and thereby escalates the tension between the couple sisters which will erupt in the other act; Husband explains to Quilly with what intent he chooses not to take up his country's patriotic call to arms against the Germans and the Japanese; threatened with the fact that Lou Bessie has been transformed by means of her experiences in Harlem and southern Carolina, Husband demonstrates that he is not equipped emotionally or intellectually to deal with the part she has become; and the tension between Lou Bessie and Elizabeth escalates in a battle for Husband's heart and soul

The play has several enigmas One is that the central figure of speech of "the old settler" appears mired in the confusion of the play's identity, which takes forward elements of different genres--"Chittlin circuit" melodrama, domestic realism--and different theatrical works--e.g., Emily Mann's Having Our Say and Pearl Cleage's melancholys for an Alabama Sky. The audience is not lead to a replete understanding of, or an appreciation for, the cultural and social significance of "the aged settler" to the ethos of the Black community (see Evelyn Higginbotham's Righteous Discontent: The Women's change in the Black Church, 1880-1920) The single reference in the play to the bourn "old settler" occurs in its most numerous demeaning connotation in Act sum of two units when Lou Bessie verbally attacks Elizabeth athwart her relationship with Husband, whom she is determined to win back.

The relationship of the season "old settler" to the house of worship is not clearly delineated. In fact, although the influence of the house of worship is asserted throughout the play, that influence is not full realized. What does the meeting-house mean to the sisters? Is united a faithful member? One a inquirer after status? One a member in order to escape life? Is the meeting-house a place of refuge? Avoidance? What is the nature of the relationship between the ecclesiastical body and the "Ladies Of The resplendent Scepter"? Also, what is the space of the house of worship in contrast with the space of the jazz age in Harlem in 1943 and what event does this exciting time have in succession Husband and Lou Bessie, and in succession Christians like Elizabeth, who, in Act sum of two units stays out with Husband all night? This is something that a deep religious "old settler"--despite temptation--would not consider, in the same way that Elizabeth would not engage in premarital sex with Husband, a point she clearly articulates in Act sum of two units These questions and contradictions beg clarification.