Set in a summer resort on the Gulf of Mexico in 1949, the play follows seven friends confronting middle age, assessing the choices they have made and the lives they have led as they cling to the hope that they will one day be at peace. The Autumn Garden is searing, savagely funny proof that there is really no escape from the past. Through this piece, Hellman offers perhaps her most perceptive, per-sonal comment on the difficulties of the great art of living together.

Cast & Characters: Elizabeth Franz (Mrs. Mary Ellis), Mamie Gummer (Sophie Tuckerman), Allison Janney (Constance Tuckerman), Maryann Plunckett (Rose Griggs), Michael Gaston (General Benjamin Griggs), Rama C. Marshall (Leon), Brian Kerwin (General Benjamin Griggs), Cynthia Mace (Carrie Ellis), Eric Murdoch (Frederick), Rufus Collins (Edward “Ned” Crossman), John Benjamin Hickey (Nick Denery), Jessica Hecht (Nina), Brooke Parks (Hilda)
View the gallery for more pictures As for Mamie Gummer, acting is mother’s milk to her - mother being Meryl Streep. Not only does Gummer dare to take on a role that requires an accent and dispatch it naturally; she also makes the dependent Sophie accommodating but tough, sometimes in the course of a single, suddenly shutdown gesture. If we must have a thespian dynasty, this beats hell out of Kate Hudson.

And “The Autumn Garden” has placed two abrasive truth-tellers, one young and one old, among her middle-aged masters of evasion: Sophie, Constance’s teenage niece from Europe (played with a French accent by Mamie Gummer), and the elderly, witheringly witty Mary Ellis (Elizabeth Franz). Their shared raison d’être is to puncture pretensions and illusions, and we are fortunate that the excellent Ms. Franz and Ms. Gummer find the characters within the functions.

Gummer gives a smart, glowing performance, showing that like her mother, Meryl Streep, she too, can master an accent and steal a stage. Williamstown Theatre Festival official website