Hartford Stage's production of Horton Foote's The Orphans Home Cycle is like a fine patchwork quilt of excellent design and colorful characters given texture by rich performances that blend the soft and rough fabrics of life in a skillfully woven story painstakingly stitched together by Director Michael Wilson.

It was Wilson who commissioned the playwright to rework nine of his plays into a three-play cycle, which runs its world premiere through Oct. 24 at Hartford stage, in collaboration with New York's Signature Theater Company, where it opens November 5th. Wilson's love for the project shines through.

The Orphans' Home Cycle follows the lives of three families in the fictitious town of Harrison, TX and spans three decades. Some 22 actors play 70 roles on a sumptuous multi-purpose set by Jeff Cowie and David Barber that looks like a quilt-framed snapshot of days gone by, with the pictures in the frame shifting into the various rooms, porches and settings where that past played out.

The design team really has struck gold with the set (the opening sequence that graphically spells out, literally, the play about to unfold, is a marvel. The visual experience is enhanced by projection design by Jan Hartley that transforms a living room into a swamp and all of the scenes are enhanced by a wondrous array of sounds created by designer John Gromada. Bill Heck stars as Horace Robedaux who remembers details of his family life around the turn of the century. We see young Horace (played by a surprisingly deep Dylan Riley Snyder at age 12 and by able Henry Hodges at age 14) help his little sister Lily Dale (Georgi James, whose wig unfortunately looks like a wig and is the only thing that seems out of place in the production) deal with their parents separation and the alcohol-related death of their father Paul Horace (also played by Heck).

Abandoned by his mother Corella (played at different ages by Virginia Krull and Annalee Jeffries) when she remarries Pete Davenport (played by Bryce Pinkham and Devon Abner) who welcomes only Lily into his home, Horace is left to fend for himself and is sent to a distant uncle to take a job working among convicts. Finally, as a young man, he visits his mother, sister and stepfather, and finds he is as unwelcome as ever (he's only allowed to stay after a bout with malaria leaves him too weak to travel). The streak of selfishness that allowed a now regretful Corella to sacrifice him for her own security has flared in the self-absorbed Lily Dale who happily spends her time charming a beau and forcing everyone to listen to her play an endless etude on the piano.

A special treat is the casting of Foote's daughter Hallie in two roles in a work that largely is based on their own family's experiences. All of the performances, without exception, deserve highest praise. Even Pamela Wright, who probably has the least amount of stage time, stands out. She is a hoot as the well intentioned by bible-thumping elderly traveler Horace meets twice on the train.

The design team really has struck gold with the set (the opening sequence that graphically spells out, literally, the play about to unfold, is a marvel. The visual experience is enhanced by projection design by Jan Hartley that transforms a living room into a swamp and all of the scenes are enhanced by a wondrous array of sounds created by designer John Gromada.

Foote's story, deftly handled by Wilson, is warm, humorous, sad and absorbing. The three-hour runtime only leaves you waiting for Part 2, which will follow Horace into courtship and marriage.

Editor's Note: Production details, except for venue and running dates were the same at Hartford as at the Signature. Reviewed by Lauren Yarger based on Sept. 9, 2009

You can also contact us at Curtainup at Facebook or Curtainup at Twitter

Subscribe to our FREE email updates with a note from editor Elyse Sommer about additions to the website -- with main page hot links to the latest features posted at our numerous locations. To subscribe, E-mail: esommer@curtainup.comesommer@curtainup.com put SUBSCRIBE CURTAINUP EMAIL UPDATE in the subject line and your full name and email address in the body of the message -- if you can spare a minute, tell us how you came to CurtainUp and from what part of the country.