Tennessee in the Summer: Hot Stuff

Joe Besecker’s dramatic romance with the life of playwright Tennessee Williams directed with a fluid hand by Sal Romeo currently comes to life at the Sidewalk Studio Theatre in Toluca Lake. I have not vetted how accurate Besecker’s research has been, but the creative effect of showing Williams as the boozy egomaniac he might have been and simultaneously as a sexually charged barefoot nymphet clad only in a slip lends electricity and insight to Tom’s journey.

Lacey Anziec’s simple set with empty picture frames, shabby furniture and mottled gray walls is strewn with discarded pages; well illuminated by Paige Selene Luke’s simple lighting design. The pages, ripped from his old Remington, are rejected attempts by Williams (powerful Jack Heller) and his alter ego, The Woman, (lithe and sexual Tamara Braun) to continue to work as he struggles with drugs and alcohol; success and failure. The pressure of Williams coming from a family of lunatics at once gives insight into possible sources for Amanda, Blanche and Maggie the Cat: each of whom appear here in other forms. Rose (Williams’ psychotic sister) is portrayed gently by Louise Davis who also limns the Nurse and Tennessee’s mother, the equally batty Edwina.

Set initially in 1972, Williams struggles with issues of bad reviews of his Small Craft Warnings and is taunted by his alter ego, The Woman, posing seductively in a window facing out from a New York hotel room. She lures a boy to come up to play. The voice of Williams seems to be channeled by Besecker using phrases like “my writing is the universe” and “I want to get my goodness back” which may have been direct Williams’ quotes. Romeo’s pacing and stage pictures, especially the image of the crucifixion of The Woman confined in a mental hospital for his over indulgences ties the work together.

Robert Standley finds three strong attitudes with his Youngman, Frankie (Merlo) and Dakin, Tom’s brother. Frankie and Tennessee meet at a party where the young Sicilian hunk offers himself to the writer on a silver platter. They stay together for fourteen tumultuous years with Frankie at once a trifle and also the Love of Tennessee’s life, though shared with a myriad casual lovers who never seemed to quench the writer’s insatiable sexual appetites.

Not for the prudish, the work in this production is professional and deserves an audience. The closeness of the seating to the stage allows for subtle and moving moments as well as literally feeling the heat of the characters as they smolder and occasionally burst into flame.

Whether or not to take the story literally is optional. For any student of Classic American Theatre, even the casual mention of “Streetcar” or “Menagerie” are enough to become immediately enveloped in the larger than life characters who, at once, are familiar and completely honest and truthful to their stories. It’s about the drama of the Drama, after all, and Tennessee Williams will remain, himself, a Classic American Dramatist.

The turmoil suggested in Tennessee in the Summer is testament to where the Drama must have come from. The play presents an equally fervent illustration of the passions, not always uplifting, that created its tragic hero.

TENNESSEE IN THE SUMMER

By Joe Besecker

Directed by Sal Romeo

Sidewalk Studio Theatre

4150 Riverside Drive

Burbank, CA 91505

Fridays and Saturdays at 8PM

Sundays at 3PM

April 13 – May 20, 2012

Tickets: $20

For information and tickets: 800 838 3006

www.Brownpapertickets.com

or

818 558 5702

www.sidewalkstudiotheatre.info

Eccentricities Of A Nightingale at ANW

L to R: Jason Dechert (John Buchanan), Deborah Puette (Alma Winemiller) Photo: Craig Schwartz


The Eccentricities of a Nightingale

The centennial anniversary of Tennessee Williams’ birth is cause for celebration. Theatres across the country are reviving his pithy gothic take on Southern Society. Everyone who has seen The Glass Menagerie has met the dominating southern matriarch. Big Daddy in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof may be the archetypical patriarch, Stanley Kowalski, the domineering Alpha Male. The delicate flowers of Laura and Stella. These are elegant archetypes sometimes reflecting one another from play to play.

Director Dàmaso Rodriguez stages the early 20th Century piece reconstructed from Williams’ earlier Summer and Smoke nicely employing supernumeraries in costume to facilitate scene changes and populate the story. Magic Lantern slides announce the scene and an imaginative use of silhouette illuminates off stage action.

Set around the time of World War I in a small town in the South we meet Alma Winemiller (Deborah Puette), upon whom the story turns: the Nightingale who sings with great passion and laughs too loudly and too often. Reverend Winemiller (Mitchell Edmonds) curses the fact that he’s sent her to the music conservatory. The Reverend’s treatment of women is immediately evident as he orders around his mentally failing wife played with demented distinction by Jill Hill in a delicate turn,

Independence Day fireworks and festivities are in the air as the Winemillers stroll the small town plaza. Alma’s childhood friend, John Buchanan (very natural Jason Dechert) has now returned to his hometown, having graduated cum laude from Johns Hopkins. He, like his father, is now a doctor. Over protective and class conscious, his doting mother, Mrs. Buchanan (sultry Christopher Callen) practically vamps her own son. John defends his friendship with Alma by saying he finds her ‘gallant.’

Alma mistakes John’s attention for a romantic interest and invites him to a meeting of a group of artsy cronies in an attempt to draw him closer and show him off to her friends.
The uncomfortable meeting of geeks and freaks played by Dave Kirkpatrick, Jacque Lynn Colton, Darby Bricker and David LM McIntyre attempts to codify their own importance by adopting a manifesto. The ennui is thick and echoes Alma’s lonely reaching out in her over zealous search for love.

Performances are top notch with Puette slightly over the top in the first act, moving comfortably into the character as Alma realizes the truth about her relationship with John. From prim and proper and trying too hard to please, to a woman of experience is a nice arc for the actress.

Rodriguez keeps the action moving smoothly on Joel Daavid’s Joseph Cornell inspired set which beautifully frames the story. Leah Piehl’s period costumes are luscious with a pink plume for Alma that may repeat through the entire ANW season from play to play. A nice touch.

THE ECCENTRICITIES OF A NIGHTINGALE
by Tennessee Williams
A Noise Within
234 Brand Blvd.
Glendale, CA
Opened Saturday, March 19 plays in repertory
through Saturday, May 28, 2011.
Tickets and information
818-240-0910 x1
www.ANoiseWithin.org
$46.00 Top

A House Not Meant to Stand / The Fountain

A House Not Meant to Stand / The Fountain Theatre

Tennessee Williams may be the most notable American playwright in the twentieth century. His Streetcar and Glass Menagerie flow like honey and salt from the troubled spirits emerging from Williams’ rich imagination. He had an ear for the language of lost souls, at once poetic and pithy. In the current production of this last of the playwright’s plays mounted in the West Coast Premiere, by Simon Levy, long time artistic director of The Fountain, we meet more gothic characters who are sick with grief, filled with bombastic hubris, sexually frustrated and bigger than life. The poetry is not as rich as what we’ve heard in the more well known plays, but none the less, in the Fountain’s presentation, we are immersed in trouble and strife. The moldering home of Cornelius and Bella McCorkle is literally falling down around their shoulders.

Jeff McGlaughlin’s grubby living room and dining area extend to embrace the audience; reflecting ages of neglect that, for reasons not really explained, the leaking roof has not been fixed; the peeling wall paper exposes lath and one can almost smell the mildew and the mold. We expect to see vermin racing through the living room, but there are only memories.

Chips McCorkle is dead and Cornelius (Alan Blumenfeld) and his wife, Bella (the excellent Sandy Martin) slog in from Memphis where they have just attended Chips’ funeral. Upstairs, Chips’ near do well brother, Charlie McCorkle (Daniel Billet) can be heard in a sexual romp with his soon to be Baby Momma, Stacey (literally moist and fecund Virginia Newcomb). Cornelius is in bombast mode that seems to permeate the cast from his very first entrance and stays there for most of the play. In a small theater, shouting at the top of one’s lungs with little variation becomes strident and must be a burden for all of the actors. Only Stacey whom we don’t really meet until the second act attempts some variation as she eludes the horny Emerson Sykes (equally bombastic Robert Craighead) as he pursues her around the living room furniture.

Whenever a plot discusses hidden money and a shotgun is produced, dramatic tension level rises considerably. In delusions of grandeur Cornelius has aspirations to run for public office. If only he could get his hands on the Dancey money (perhaps a family myth from Bella’s side?). He is convinced his pre-dementia wife is hiding the stash from him. When elected he could become influential and give Charlie a cushy job and grant favors to his cronies.

This is pure Williams. Occasional asides break the fourth wall. Jessie Sykes (perfectly cast Lisa Richards) explains her recent cosmetic surgery and imagined fears regarding a sex fiend loose in the area, whom we suppose she would feint directly toward as she sighed “no no..”

Program notes discuss the business of the “Southern Gothic” of which Williams was a past master. These archetypical creatures, the blustery patriarch, the faded Southern mother, the ambitious but ineffectual son, delusional others, are all here. As in The Glass Menagerie when Tom’s father is mentioned, his photograph glows with memory, Bella has Charlie hang a family photograph in the scrimmed off dining area where, when examined with lighted candles, the family appears in ghostly black and white, fading as the candles are taken away. Later, as Bella’s failing mind runs her out the door to collide with a car in the rain and then comes back inside, she imagines her three young children projected into the dining room, taking their places at the dinner table, through her demented vision.

Williams’ ability to create strong characters is at work in this piece. My issue is mostly with the direction… or the actors seizing their own lead to shout the dialogue and keep the action at an almost fever pitch from the get go. Though no one would allow that Williams is ever very subtle, it seems that finding the peaks and valleys of this play would make it more enjoyable to watch. Director Levy’s ability as a director is well known. If it was his intention that the energy of the cast to be dialed up for much of the play, perhaps finding a few subtle moments might be an idea. The entrance of Emerson Sykes matched McCorkle’s bombast line for line, exhausting any chance for understatement.

Sandy Martin’s Bella virtually stops the show with her description of being in the room with her grandfather at the moment of his passing. This is a show that deserves an audience and as a Williams play that has been only marginally explored, takes the notion of Southern Gothic to the wall with all its might. Uncredited shady characters come looking for Sykes that seem a little out of place. One of whom we meet again as a tall bearded cop we might not expect to see in Mississippi in 1982. Chip Bent’s Officer “Pee Wee” Jackson adds a nice touch in the second act.

Over all this is a show to see and judge for one’s self. If you love southern accents (collectively all just fine) and Williams’ strong archetypes and a well mounted production, except for some highly accentuated volume... see it.


A House Not Meant to Stand
by Tennessee Williams
The Fountain Theatre
5060 Fountain Avenue
Hollywood, CA 90029 (East of Normandie on Fountain)

February 26 through April 17, 2011
Thursday through Sunday
Tickets and information 323 663 1525
www.FountainTheatre.com
$30.00 Top