The central character of “Becomes a Woman,” a play that just opened at Mint Theater Company in Manhattan, is named Francie Nolan – the same name as the protagonist of “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn,” the classic New York City novel by Betty Smith. That’s not a coincidence, exactly; Smith also wrote “Becomes a Woman,” which is only now receiving its world-premiere staging after 93 years.
“It's important for people to understand that this is a dozen years before the beginning of the writing of ‘A Tree Grows in Brooklyn,’” said Jonathan Bank, producing artistic director of the Mint Theater Company. “It's become kind of a sense that Francie Nolan is Betty Smith, but Francie Nolan was a fictional character for a play written in 1930. And then, you know, I would like to think that she – as homage to our Francie – named the character in the book after her.”
Betty Smith, author of "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn," wrote more than 70 plays early in her career.
Smith is best remembered for her semi-autobiographical novel, which was published in 1943. But she wrote over 70 plays, and studied at the Yale School of Drama. When she wrote “Becomes a Woman” in 1930, she was a young mother living in Ann Arbor, Michigan, with her first husband, and taking classes at the University of Michigan despite never graduating high school.
Her play won the $1,000 Hopwood Award for Drama, a prize the young Arthur Miller would receive five years later. The award enabled Smith to further her studies at Yale, but her play was never produced. Bank found the manuscript in the archives of the University of North Carolina, where Smith donated her papers. When “Becomes a Woman” officially opened earlier this week after a period of previews, a guest of honor was in attendance: Smith’s 100-year-old daughter, Nancy Smith Pfeiffer, who was a child when the play was written.
Smith’s play and novel both take place in Brooklyn, among the working poor, in the early part of the 20th century. But where “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn” is a coming-of-age story about a young girl up to the age of 17, “Becomes a Woman” looks at an eventful year in the life of a 19-year-old.
“Even though it is a different Francie, there are little intersections and she has that shared spirit of gumption,” said director Britt Berke, who added that she read the play in one sitting. “I just felt like I understood what Betty was saying very clearly. Her stage directions felt like my sense of humor and the characters felt really alive and beautiful and clear.”
"She's afraid to put herself out there, until she sings," says Emma Pfitzer Price about Francie Nolan, the role she plays in "Becomes a Woman."
At the start of the play, the audience encounters Francie Nolan in the dime store where she works. “This is her first job, the only place she's ever worked in and the confidence it gives her to kind of find herself,” said Emma Pfitzer Price, who portrays Francie for Mint Theater. “But also, the awkwardness: She’s afraid to go on dates. She's afraid to put herself out there, until she sings.”
The shopgirl finds her confidence growing after she's called upon to demonstrate songs to sell sheet music. “It's a different Francie,” Price said, “a Francie that we get to meet later on, when she grows into herself.”
In the play, Francie Nolan is the daughter of two unhappily married Irish immigrants, and contributes her wages to the family. She meets a rich young man and becomes pregnant by him. But while she marries him and gives birth to their child, he refuses to live with her.
“The fallout is immense, because the stakes and the family expectations are so huge,” Price said, “huge enough that she's kicked out of her home and really has to invent herself for herself.”
“Becomes a Woman” is unsentimental in its portrayal of an immigrant family of modest means in working-class Brooklyn.
Like “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn,” which would come 13 years later, “Becomes a Woman” is unsentimental in its portrayal of its period and characters. “Every time you think you're about to arrive at a stereotype or every time the play feels like it might slip into cliché, something happens that rips you out of it,” Berke said. In her view, the play was ahead of its time.
“Betty Smith was writing about reproductive justice at a time when no playwrights were writing about it so openly,” Berke said. “So I think that is sort of layered into every moment of this play, and it feels really exceptionally important right now.”
Price agrees. “Because it's so unflinching and so provocative, I understand that's why this play wasn't produced in its day,” she said. “These words are so revolutionary about women's rights and about women's freedom.”
That feeling of timeliness made producing the play all the more important, says Banks. “The play clearly wasn't produced because Francie isn't ashamed,” he said. “She doesn't repent. She's not ashamed. And she says, ‘Who's the one who's done wrong here? Not me. No.’”
“Becomes a Woman” runs through March 18 at Mint Theater Company; you can find more details here.
