‘When They Speak of Rita’

When They Speak of Rita, written by Daisy B. Foote and starring Hallie Foote, is directed by their father, Horton Foote. A sweet case of cottage industry, this is a small, old-fashioned play about a wife, bored after twenty years of marriage, who runs off with her son’s virginal teenage friend but, after a few unhappy months, returns to her quietly forgiving husband to resume her functions as housewife at home and cleaning woman in other people’s houses. No one, least of all her unforgiving son, understands why she goes on wanting something more from life. There is something touchingly naïve about the play and its production, about the terrible inarticulate straightforwardness of it all. If you respond to such things, you will not be disappointed here.

‘When They Speak of Rita’