The Orphans' Home Cycle Part 3: The Story of a Family - Off-Broadway

What Is the Story of The Orphans’ Home Cycle: The Story of a Family?
In the final section of Horton Foote’s trilogy of nine hour-long plays, hero Horace Robedaux, now 20 years old, is happily married and the doting father of a baby girl. The first play, 1918, centers on the flu epidemic that sweeps Harrison, Texas, with devastating consequences for everyone in town. The second play, Cousins, takes place seven years later and finds Horace, now the owner of a clothing store, and his wife Elizabeth visiting his hospitalized mother and spoiled sister in Houston amid financial pressure from the failing cotton crop. The trilogy ends with The Death of Papa (set in 1928), in which the event referred to in the title, the death of Elizabeth’s wealthy father, sends shock waves through the extended family.
 

Should I See It?

What Is The Orphans’ Home Cycle: The Story of a Family Like?
The third part of Foote’s autobiographical trilogy begins on a mournful note, as Horace and Elizabeth and their families endure a season of illness and loss. Cousins is lighter and slyly funny, with a stage full of actors arguing (repeatedly, and at length) about who and how they’re related to each other. The final play is touching and wistful, with every character on the precipice of change—a fitting ending to a saga that truly plays like a great novel come to life. The three parts of The Orphans’ Home Cycle add up to an unmissable theatrical event.

Is A The Orphans’ Home Cycle: The Story of a Family Good for Kids?
If tweens have seen the other two parts of the trilogy, they’ll want to finish the journey. Like part two, however, this section of the story seems too old-fashioned to interest young theatergoers.