Icebound Theatre Review

A trio of sour middle-aged siblings gathers in the parlor of the family homestead in northern Maine like “carrion crows around a sick cow in a pasture,” awaiting the death of their equally curmudgeonly mother and dreaming of getting hold of their inheritance, in the Metropolitan Playhouse’s production of Owen Davis’s 1923 Pulitzer Prize-winning play Icebound. Before the old lady breathes her last, the eldest son Henry (Kelly King) is jumping all over Judge Bradford (Rob Skolits), the keeper of the will, to find out who is getting what and to make sure their youngest and ne’er-do-well brother, Ben (Quinlan Corbett), a fugitive from justice, has been cut out so that Henry and his sisters Sadie (Alyssa Simon) and Ella (Anne Bates) won’t have to share a dime with him. The two sisters are also keen on dumping their distant cousin Jane (Olivia Killingsworth), who has been living in the house and serving as Mother’s caregiver for many years. But Mother has the last cackling laugh. She has left everything to Jane, with the proviso that she must commit herself to salvaging Ben, who has been hiding out to evade trial and probable imprisonment on charges of arson. Thereby hangs the tale, and the plot unfolds as Jane strives to fulfill her charge while holding the rest of the family at bay.