‘Roads to Home’ an emotional journey

The three related one-acts in Horton Foote’s “The Roads to Home,” now at the Lost Studio, don’t have a lot of action, per se. For the most part, the characters simply chat. However, those trivial, epic interchanges can be stunning in their emotional impact. A great humanist, Foote understands that fate is the villain in most of life’s melodramas.

It’s fitting that his daughter, Hallie Foote, who starred in the 1982 premiere of “Home,” has co-produced this excellent production. (Horton Foote will do a Q&A; after the Dec. 10 performance.) Scott Paulin, a longtime admirer of Horton Foote, directs with an unostentatious authority that jibes well with Foote’s deceptive simplicity.

Set in Houston in 1924, the first play, “A Nightingale,” revolves around the beautiful, wealthy Annie (wrenching Jenny Dare Paulin), whose unpredictable behavior keeps her husband (Brendan Bonner) in a state of anguish. Outwardly prepossessing, Annie winds up at the home of Mabel Votaugh (Wendy Phillips), a kindly older acquaintance from their home town of Harrison -- familiar Foote territory. Despite the kindness of friends and family, Annie is, palpably and inexorably, doomed, a victim of past trauma and incipient madness.

In the second, more humorous “The Dearest of Friends,” we learn that Annie has been institutionalized. However, at issue here is not an unhinged mind but an unraveling marriage, that of Mabel’s neighbor Vonnie (Laura Richardson), whose husband, Eddie (John Bozeman), wants a divorce. While Mabel’s husband, Jack (Jim Haynie), snoozes nearby, the women grapple, amusingly and poignantly, with Vonnie’s crisis.

The closer, “Spring Dance,” picks up Annie’s story four years later at what seems like a typical dance -- until we realize, devastatingly, where the dance is taking place. Here, as in all the plays, the performances are pitch-perfect, although the mentally afflicted seem a bit too muted and presentable to be strictly credible. The superlative cast includes John Blevins, John Gardner and Alex Kreuzwieser as Annie’s fellow sufferers -- courtly swains whose ingrained civility contrasts strikingly with their pitiable circumstances.

*

‘The Roads to Home’

Where: The Lost Studio, 130 S. La Brea Ave., Hollywood

When: 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 4 p.m. Sundays

Ends: Dec. 17

Price: $15

Contact: (310) 600-3682, www.theroadstohome.com

Running time: 2 hours, 15 minutes