Hallie Foote, left, and Elizabeth Ashley star in the Alley Theatre s production of Horton Foote's "Dividing the Estate.": Alley TheaterNo playwright has ever known his chosen milieu and people better than Horton Foote knew small-town Texas and its plainspoken inhabitants forever struggling to keep life from getting the best of them.

Foote’s perception was never more acute — nor turned to more unexpectedly hilarious effect — than in Dividing the Estate.

A late triumph of Foote’s seven-decade career, Dividing the Estate makes its Houston premiere at the Alley Theatre, with director Michael Wilson re-creating his inspired 2008 Broadway production, showcasing an ideal cast anchored by the irreplaceable Elizabeth Ashley and Hallie Foote in the two most prominent roles.

The action unfolds in 1987 in Harrison, Foote’s fictionalized version of his hometown of Wharton, where three generations of the once-lordly Gordon family gather to scheme and squabble about ways to stave off financial ruin, amid the pressures of falling property value, unpaid taxes and the ’80s oil bust.

Feisty matriarch Stella manipulates her three offspring by pitting them against each other. Widowed daughter Lucille, and her Son (that’s what they call him) live with Stella and draw modest salaries since Lucille looks after the house and Son manages the estate. Naturally, they side with Stella in her effort to preserve the status quo.

But Stella’s alcoholic son, Lewis, needs money to get out of his latest scrape, and daughter Mary Jo arrives from Houston with husband Bob and two teen daughters, the whole family facing bankruptcy after living beyond their means for years. Lewis, Mary Jo and Bob campaign to divide and sell the property and get what they can now.

The family struggle plays out amid unexpected events and other currents, including three generations of serving staff, and Son’s schoolteacher fiancee, Pauline, the only person who takes note of larger social forces that will affect them all.

Roger Robinson as Doug in a scene from "Dividing the Estate" at the Alley Theatre.: Alley TheaterAn instant classic of American family life, Estate ranks with Foote’s finest work. His handling of the densely layered action and character interplay is expert and true. While maintaining his trademark authenticity and sympathy, he achieves a sharper edge by tipping the balance from his customary tender elegy to wryly observant comedy. Yet by the play’s close, the dramatic impact has registered: the passing of a way of life and a stage full of people at a loss to cope with change.

It’s a play whose combination of technical mastery and human understanding could have been achieved only through long years of living and artistic exploration.

Likewise, Wilson’s years of staging Foote’s plays pay off handsomely with a production perfectly attuned to the dramatist’s vision. We get the sardonic alarm at certain characters’ behavior, but we also understand the desperation driving them. The rendition could scarcely be better paced or more apt at registering how the atmosphere changes depending on which characters are sharing the stage.

Ashley, a major Broadway star since the 1960s, brings her throaty vigor and authoritative presence to Stella — the old girl’s arbitrary willfulness and meandering memory giving way to the ferocity of a tigress when defending a pet cause or person.

Hallie Foote’s selfish, relentlessly calculating Mary Jo is a masterpiece of comic characterization. Pouncing like a prim vulture with “How much will I get?” queries, tossing tantrums and tirades or frozen in helpless inaction, she’s sad yet hysterical.

Penny Fuller’s warm and well-defined Lucille catches her reliable and resentful sides, formidably feisty when necessary. As Lewis, James Black movingly enacts that Foote fixture, the weak man troubled and shamed by his inability to best his demons. James DeMarse’s bluff, jovial, desperately finagling Bob is spot-on as the Houston real-estate tycoon whiz suddenly in financial free-fall.

Roger Robinson gives a vital, richly textured portrayal of Doug, the proud, 92-year-old family retainer. Devon Abner’s Son at times has a hint of Henry Fonda — dutiful yet increasingly fed up at shouldering burdens. As his bright, altruistic intended, Maggie Lacy is humorously out of sync with the Gordons’ greed and combativeness. Pat Bowie instills patient housekeeper Mildred with knowing bite.

Jeff Cowie’s exquisitely detailed setting recalls Broadway’s golden age and master designers such as Jo Mielziner.

As the Alley’s first Foote project since the playwright’s death in 2009, Dividing the Estate inevitably carries an air of valedictory — a play and production to cherish.

DIVIDING THE ESTATE

When: 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays-Thursdays, 8 p.m. Fridays, 2:30 and 8 p.m. Saturdays, 2:30 and 7:30 p.m. Sundays, through Oct. 30
Where: Alley Theatre, 615 Texas
Tickets: $25-$87; 713-220-5700