People die. Such stuff is the backbone of literature, of course, and the theme of mortality is so deeply entrenched in our storytelling that we consider it to be a given, like the air. If you are a regular theater-goer, you likely will have seen scores of characters meet their ends on stage. Traumatic, yes, and sometimes wrenching, but often not unexpected. And very cathartic.

Towns die, too. When they do, it's incredibly poignant -- maybe even more so than when a person dies, at least in a fictional world. Perhaps it's because towns wither away and disappear far less frequently than people. We don't expect them to go. We think of a town as something that lives on for future generations.

Horton Foote's classic "The Trip to Bountiful" finds the feeling and the tenderness in this theme, and it's a testament to its quality that the play holds up so well over the years. Joyce Anabo, who directs the accomplished new Good Company Players production at the 2nd Space Theatre, matches this distinguished pedigree with a warm, smart vision. Anabo highlights an exquisitely sweet performance by community-theater veteran Mary Piona as the inimitable Mrs. Carrie Watts, the frail long-timer who wants nothing more than to return for a last time to the tiny Texas town where she grew up.

Over the years, Piona has been cast in many small and juicy character roles -- often in funny ones that take advantage of her wry, no-nonsense delivery. But with this demanding lead role, she shines in a different way. From the moment the lights (by Andrea Henrickson) first go up on her sitting up at night in a robe and a rocking chair -- a sad, listless old woman living out the rest of her days in the cramped Houston apartment she shares with her son and daughter-in-law -- she brings a presence and a gravity to the role that gives it weight without being too showy. What I like is how she doesn't do Drama with a capital D -- she's still Mary, if that makes any sense, bringing even the loftiest monologue down to earth.

In the first act, Foote makes sure we know how difficult Carrie's life can be. With no room of her own, the sofa is her bed. (David Pierce's minimalist set is perfect for the material and Ginger Kay Lewis-Reed's period costumes spot-on.) Her gentle but sometimes ineffectual son, Ludie (Hector Yanez), is devoted to her, but he's no match for his headstrong and snippy wife, Jessie Mae (Valerie Munoz), who chafes at being cooped up all day with her mother-in-law. Carrie's dream is to return to Bountiful, where she was born. She has tried to "run away" in the past but has always been caught at the train station by her exasperated son. This time, she's luckier.

Along the way, Carrie meets various people on her bus trip, including a young war bride, Thelma (a well-played Julia Reimer) and a sheriff (played with a gentle-soul understatement by Ronald Blackwell), who allow this talkative older woman to brush off some of her goodness on them, rather than simply shutting her out.

This all sounds like it could be the stuff of stale sentiment, but in Anabo's hands, we never fall into that trap. It helps that Yanez and Munoz are so strong in their roles: he striving in his anemic life for more vigor, and she trying to pare her zest for living down to fit in her small world. It would be easy to paint the son and daughter-in-law in this piece as villains: the big, bad, insensitive spoiled youngsters with no appreciation for a frail woman's wishes. But they have their own limitations in their lives, too, and some of the tenderness of the play comes from the realization that everyone is confined by one boundary or another.

To me, there's one moment that doesn't live up to its potential. The opening of the third act, when Carrie reaches Bountiful, could be punched up dramatically. Pierce has designed a whopper of a visual effect involving the use of projections -- it's simply stunning -- but the moment feels sort of plopped into the play with no build-up or sense of emotional sweep. (Should that effect have come at the end of the act rather than the beginning?)

But that's a minor quibble. I found myself tremendously moved by this small, spare play, and by Piona's tender performance. Perhaps the deep-seated appeal of "The Trip to Bountiful" comes because Carrie's great wish is so simple and yet so complex -- to see home one more time. But as we all know, and as Carrie herself realizes, that's easier said than done.