Becomes a Woman starts out as light comedy, then moves into melodrama, before transforming after the interval into a drama with echoes of Ibsen.
Playwright Betty Smith is best known today for the novel A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, but a dozen years before its publication in 1943, she had written this drama, which inexplicably did not receive a world première until it hit the Mint stage in Britt Berke’s excellent February 2023 production.
As one expects from this company, the set and costume designers Vicky R Davis and Emilee McVeigh-Lee have worked wonders and convincingly take us back a century to the midst of the Great Depression.
The first act is played out in a five and dime store, where Emma Pfitzer Price, making her Off-Broadway debut as timid 19-year-old protagonist Francie Nolan, sells sheet music by singing the songs, accompanied on the piano by Pearl Rhein’s brassy Florry.
What seems like a standard scene from many comedies of the day takes on a darker hue when their colleague Tessie, played by Gina Daniels, reveals something of her own dark history and prefigures the future.
Francie has been well drilled by her Irish-American parents, a threatening policeman and his long-suffering housewife. Pretty enough to attract every passing man’s attention, she also has the good sense to reject them all as good-for-nothings. That changes when she is charmed by the boss’s son, dandy Leonard. Peterson Townsend in this role seems like a dream come true, but dreams like that don’t happen in real life.
The second act moves to the Nolan home, where the bickering family awaits Leonard’s arrival and is soon confronted by an inevitable dramatic trope which almost literally leads to shotgun wedding. At this point, the play seems a charming but lightweight melodrama and evocation of past times. However, Francie matures in the ensuing few months, having been deserted by almost everyone that she loved.
On her birthday, in turn, she receives a shocking offer from an impresario, support from Tessie and her fiancé Max (a witty cameo performance by Jason O’Connell), a nuanced visit from Duane Boutté playing Leonard’s impressively modern father and finally her unworthy husband.
Step-by-step, Francie gains courage and takes on the mantle of an American version of Nora (from A Doll’s House), no longer cowering before men, money or power in a play that may be almost a century old but contains powerful feminist messages that still ring true today, as does some of the exploration of issues around class and privilege.
Emma Pfitzer Price delivers a star performance as Francie and has a lovely singing voice. She receives strong support all around throughout a highly enjoyable two-hour running time.
Yet again, Mint Theater Company has discovered a gem and generously shares it with the world via its free streaming platform. Viewers are urged to enjoy the play and then support the company.