"In many respects, the play reminds us, America and its attitudes toward women haven't changed as much as we'd like to think, either."
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“Smith was at heart a playwright even if she never achieved comparable success in the theatre. Becomes a Woman, copyrighted in 1931 and only now making its world premiere, is a strikingly feminist work; the playwright knew everything about the pitfalls facing working-class women, and here she subjects her heroine to most of them…When a writer achieves success in another medium, one is often suspicious of their theatrical aspirations, but Smith clearly knew plenty about structure, characterization, and dialogue. Becomes a Woman builds steadily to a haymaker of a climax, dispensing with anything like a conventional happy ending.”
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" 'Becomes a Woman' suffers from writing that often seems blunt and schematic to the point of melodrama, further marred by frequent hairpin turns of emotion among several of the characters, plus a certain redundancy of dialogue, inconsistency of tone, and a lack of concision."
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While it is interesting to finally see a play by Betty Smith reach the New York stage, "Becomes a Woman" remains a footnote to theater history, though it would have been much more sensational if it had been staged in its own era. Britt Berke’s production is always gripping, but it fails to make the male characters any more than cardboard cutouts, while the women are three dimensional. In the style of the Mint Theater Company’s usual high standards, the physical production cannot be faulted. On an historic note, the Francie Nolan in Becomes a Woman starts at the same age as the one in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn when the novel ends but without that heroine's education. This may have been meant to be a cautionary tale as to what happened to women who had neither skills nor experience of the world.
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" 'Becomes a Woman' is a lovely sort of play that no one writes anymore. There’s no reason not to present plays from the past like this (or even write them now), even if they possess a whiff of melodrama."
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“The entire production misses the mark for which it was aiming, but it will introduce every audience to a writer worthy of a second look. That’s something.”
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I can’t know the reason why “Becomes A Woman” was never produced. At this point, the play is of greater historical than aesthetic interest, but there are almost enough good lines, and subtle wit, as well as an intriguing proto-feminist sensibility, to compensate for the parts that are stilted, predictable, and dated.
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“ 'Becomes a Woman' works as a true star vehicle (despite a large ensemble), it’s a little surprising no one has mounted it before."
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