Playwright Horton Foote made his name with wistful family dramas rooted in home and neighborhood. He left a big void when he died in 2009, and now the shoe is on the other Foote.
Not only has Horton’s daughter Daisy been in the same business for more than a decade, but her latest play, “Him,” explores familiar terrain.
Like Horton’s “Dividing the Estate,” Daisy’s “Him” — which opened Tuesday night off-Broadway, in a production directed by Evan Yionoulis — centers on middle-aged siblings who face financial problems and bicker about an inheritance.
When we first meet them, Pauline (Daisy’s sister, Hallie Foote) and her brother, Henry (Tim Hopper), are broke. They can’t even afford to fix a ceiling light, and the cupboards are bare, both in their house and in the grocery store they run.
“This whole goddamn place is about to come crashing down around our ears,” the flinty Pauline tells Henry. “We will end up on the streets.”
“Tomorrow, Pauline,” her softer-hearted brother replies, trying to keep the reckoning at bay. “We’ll talk about it tomorrow.”
Their mentally disabled brother, Farley (Adam LeFevre), has a child’s mind in a man’s body, and doesn’t mind or even notice the mounting troubles. His happy daily routine changes only when Louise (Adina Verson), who has a similar handicap, moves in across the street.
Looming over this hardscrabble New Hampshire clan — figuratively and literally, since he’s in a room upstairs, incapacitated by a stroke — is the trio’s dad, referred to as “him.”
He is unseen, but not unheard: Throughout the show, the characters break into reminiscences, and it soon becomes clear that these are excerpts from the father’s diary.
When the patriarch finally dies, his children’s lives change at last.
At times, we catch glimpses of the show that could have been, an intimate look at down-on-their-luck people dealing with adversity and loneliness — Hopper’s Henry neatly captures a small-town gay man’s life, wishful-thinking crushes.
But “Him” also accumulates potboiler developments: a secret will, hidden diaries, illicit romances, a heart attack. You find yourself thinking forlornly about the elder Foote’s delicate touch, contrasting his ability to exploit the unsaid with Daisy’s overwriting.
The casting of Hallie only invites these comparisons since her idiosyncratic speech pattern and awkward bird-like movements are closely associated with the elder Foote’s work, in which she frequently appeared. “Him” isn’t quite strong enough for two overwhelming paternal shadows.