In the Afterlife

Writer James Agee was only 45 when he died of a heart attack in 1955, but his legacy includes “Let Us Now Praise Famous Men,” his classic 1941 collaboration with photographer Walker Evans on tenant farmers; “Permit Me Voyage,” a tome of his poetry from 1934; and “The Morning Watch,” his 1951 autobiographical novel. His thoughtful, intelligent film reviews for the Nation during the 1940s are still studied and admired, and he also penned two of the best films of the 1950s: the romantic adventure “The African Queen” and the eerie, evocative “The Night of the Hunter.”

Agee is perhaps best remembered, though, for “A Death in the Family.” The uncompleted, semiautobiographical novel about the death of his father was published posthumously in 1957 and subsequently won the Pulitzer Prize. On Monday night, PBS’ “Masterpiece Theatre’s American Collection” presents a new dramatization of the lyrical, simple story.

Set in Tennessee in 1915, “A Death in the Family” stars Annabeth Gish (“The X-Files”) as Mary Follett, a religious young woman who is married to the carefree, charming Jay (John Slattery). Austin Wolff plays their 7-year-old son, Rufus, who adores his father. Their loving world falls apart when Jay is killed in an auto accident.

Agee’s middle name was Rufus, and that’s what happened to him when he was 7. The story chronicles the survivors’ efforts to move on with their lives. Directed and produced by Gil Cates from a script by Robert W. Lenski, “A Death in the Family” also stars James Cromwell as Mary’s father, Kathleen Chalfant as her aunt and David Alford as her brother.

Gish has been an unabashed fan of the novel for years. Her parents are both educators and she received her degree in English. “I think it was such a good fit for me,” she says. “I felt I wanted to do it such justice.”

“She is a wonderful actress,” Cates says of Gish. “To me, she really represents maybe even an idealized version of what a woman of 1915 was--strong, resilient, capable of amazing pain and softness. She was my first choice from the very beginning.”

In the early 1960s, “A Death in the Family” was adapted by Tad Mosel for Broadway as “All the Way Home.” That version was turned into a movie and was later done twice for television. For the PBS adaptation, Lenski went back to Agee’s novel.

“When you write a play, you are writing language that is meant for someone in the 30th row to hear,” says Cates. “Everything has got to be said through the words--the emotions, the visual sense, everything outside the narrative. So it tends to be a little formalized. The wonderful thing about Bob Lenski is that he went back to the original book and wrote this as a film. I think the writing is more appropriate for a film than the play was.”

“Bob Lenski had such a reverence and respect for the book,” adds executive producer Marian Rees. “He never went down the path to make [the screenplay] in one’s own language. You can read verse and chapter from the book that he incorporated and that he was faithful to.”

Restraint was the edict of this production. All the characters’ emotions are kept close to the vest. “We wanted the characters to be as true to what we think they were in 1915,” Cates explains.

“The book is divided into two pieces,” says the director. “You read 10 pages of narrative and then you read 10 pages of description, which is italicized. It keeps going back and forth between the narrative of the story and the description of the period. When you read the description, Agee will talk about the people being very private in those days, very much to themselves. They didn’t [pour] forth their emotional feelings. Everything was kept within, which is one of the reasons I loved Annabeth, because she managed to convey that sense of privacy.”

Cates interviewed a lot of children to play Agee’s alter ego, ultimately finding Wolff in Los Angeles. “What a sweetie pie,” Cates says. “I just loved that little guy. We became really good friends.”

“Masterpiece Theatre’s American Collection: A Death in the Family” airs Monday at 9 p.m. on KCET. The network has rated it TV-PG (may be unsuitable for young children).