![\"Deborah](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/sut-l-stage-bountiful2.jpg\")
Deborah Gilmour Smyth stars as Carrie Watts in Lamb\u2019s Players Theatre\u2019s production of Horton Foote\u2019s play \u201cThe Trip to Bountiful.\u201d (Nathan Peirson)<\/p>\nThirty-five years later, Lamb\u2019s Players Theatre\u2019s Robert Smyth and Deborah Gilmour Smyth are taking another trip to Bountiful.<\/p>\n
Horton Foote\u2019s 1953 play about an elderly woman fleeing her painful present for the idealized peace of her rural Texas hometown was first produced by Lamb\u2019s Players in 1991, three years before it opened its current home in Coronado.<\/p>\n
Producing Artistic Director Robert Smyth directed that production, with Jeannette Clift George starring as Foote\u2019s protagonist, Carrie Watts. In that production, Deborah Gilmour Smyth, Lamb\u2019s\u2019 associate artistic director, portrayed Jessie Mae Watts, Carrie\u2019s testy daughter-in-law in the unhappy Houston home Carrie longs to leave.<\/p>\n
Deborah Gilmour Smyth stars as Carrie Watts in Lamb\u2019s Players Theatre\u2019s production of Horton Foote\u2019s play \u201cThe Trip to Bountiful.\u201d (Nathan Peirson)<\/p>\n
In the new Lamb\u2019s production of \u201cThe Trip to Bountiful,\u201d Gilmour Smyth is playing Carrie, with Smyth again directing. This cast also includes Andrew Oswald as Carrie\u2019s son, Ludie, and Kelsey Venter as Jessie Mae, plus Lance Arthur Smith, Lauren King Thompson and Spencer Gerber.<\/p>\n
Returning to \u201cBountiful\u201d was in line with Smyth\u2019s desire to \u201cfind something for Deborah,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHere\u2019s a different voice for her. I thought this would be perfect for her, and to come back to a piece that is amazingly resilient even though it\u2019s delicate and it has an age on it, still feels fresh because the characters are real and so well written,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Smyth is a longtime admirer of playwright Foote.<\/p>\n
\u201cMany people over the years have called him \u2018the American Chekhov,\u2019\u201d he said. \u201cHe\u2019s so good at natural conversation and at understanding space. He\u2019s a quintessential Southern playwright. If you engage with these people (Foote\u2019s characters) they will move you and take you somewhere and surprise you.\u201d<\/p>\n
While saying that the \u201991 Lamb\u2019s production \u201cfeels like a million years ago,\u201d Gilmour Smyth remembers that \u201cBountiful\u201d staging well and calls coming back to the play \u201ca real blessing.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like I want to have in me as I age a bit of what Carrie Watts has,\u201d she said. \u201cShe\u2019s feisty, she\u2019s funny, she\u2019s warm and there\u2019s a sense of optimism in her in spite of the pain she\u2019s going through. Robert\u2019s helping me trying to discover that.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Deborah](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/sut-l-stage-bountiful1.jpg\")
Deborah Gilmour Smyth stars as Carrie Watts in Lamb\u2019s Players Theatre\u2019s production of Horton Foote\u2019s play \u201cThe Trip to Bountiful.\u201d (Nathan Peirson)<\/p>\n
This experience is far from new for Smyth.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s (Deborah) a brilliant woman,\u201d he said. \u201cI just need to nudge her and suggest things. We\u2019ve collaborated onstage and she\u2019s directed me many times. Over the years we\u2019ve learned how to work with each other. We\u2019ve got a little bit of a shorthand but also a willingness to stop and go \u2018What do we need here together?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Said Gilmour Smyth: \u201cPeople often say \u2018How can you work together?\u2019 I think the real challenge is what if we\u2019re not working together?\u201d<\/p>\n
For this production of \u201cThe Trip to Bountiful\u201d arriving more than 30 years after directing it the last time, Smyth explains he\u2019s \u201capproaching it with different eyes. I hope I\u2019ve learned a few things. I actually have told the design team that I want to do it more minimalist than we did then and let the words carry the audience to the places and the pictures.\u201d<\/p>\n
Carrie Watts is written as a strong farm woman. In playing her, Gilmour Smyth, who says she has farm people in her family, is channeling that and the character\u2019s fortitude and self-awareness.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s a woman who recognizes that she is not being who she wishes she could be,\u201d she said. \u201cShe sees her faults and her failures and the fact that she\u2019s not as gracious as she wants to be; she\u2019s got some torment going on in her life as she ages.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe wants to regain her dignity and her strength and her sense of peace.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018The Trip to Bountiful\u2019<\/p>\n
When:<\/strong> Previews through Sunday. Opens Wednesday and runs through March 1. 7 p.m. Thursdays and Fridays; 2 and 7 p.m. Wednesdays and Saturdays; 2 p.m. Sundays<\/p>\n