The Tennessee Williams Festival may be officially over, but there are still two plays running that you still have a chance to see. They’re both excellent productions of lesser-known plays by Williams, and they are well worth checking out. Here are my reviews:
Will Mr. Merriwether Return From Memphis?
By Tennessee Williams
Directed by Jef Awada
Photo by Peter Wochniak
Tennessee Williams Festival St. Louis
The Stockton House proved to be a popular and ideal venue for The St. Louis Rooming House Plays at last year’s festival. Having the plays performed in a real historic house lent a lot of atmosphere to the production, creating an experience that almost seemed like time travel. The same effect is achieved in this year’s production of Will Mr. Merriwether Return From Memphis? In fact, it often seems like the house itself is a character in the play.
Unlike last year’s production here, the audience isn’t divided into groups. This is one play with a more linear structure, although it’s not too linear. Here, loneliness and the yearning for personal connection are on clear display. The story, set near the turn of the 20th Century, centers around a widowed mother, Louise (Julie Layton), who is still relatively young and has become obsessed with a young lodger with whom she had a brief relationship, the Mr. Merriwether of the title. He’s left for a new job in Memphis and hasn’t let Louise know if, or when, he will return. Louise is often at odds with her teenage daughter, Gloria (Molly McCaskill), whose choice of outfits and obvious delight in the interest of local boys bothers her mother. There’s also Louise’s neighbor, the older and also widowed Nora (Kelley Weber), whose interest in the supernatural coincides with Louise’s. The two frequently talk about summoning “apparitions”—ghosts of various figures from history, who tell them their own stories of sorrow and loneliness. While Louise and Nora conduct séances, attend French class, and miss their husbands and the frequently mentioned Mr. Merriwether, Gloria indulges in an encounter with a boy from her class, identified in the program as Romantically Handsome Youth (Jacob Flekier).
This play covers a lot of issues in its meandering story, focusing on the loneliness of its older characters and the romantic and sexual exploration of Gloria and her classmate, and Louise’s jealousy of her daughter’s youth and romantic exploits. Music figures into the story a great deal, as well, provided by Jack Wild as the banjo player who is occasionally mentioned by the characters, playing various songs including “La Vie En Rose” for Gloria and the Youth, whose encounter is acted out in the form of dance, as they travel throughout the house, often followed by a glaring, wistful Louise. Terry Meddows, Sophia Brown, and Bob Harvey also appear in a variety of roles, mostly in drag, with Meddows and Harvey playing various women and Brown playing mostly male characters, including the apparitions of painter Vincent Van Gogh and poet Arthur Rimbaud. Meddows is excellent as Gloria’s enthusiastic schoolteacher, among other characters; and Harvey makes an impression as the town’s strict librarian and others. Meddows, Brown, and Harvey are especially memorable as three Crones who are apparently supposed to be the Eumenides, or the Fates.
Layton, as Louise, gives an achingly authentic portrayal of a supremely lonely woman who longs not only for a real, personal connection, but also for her youth. Weber is equally strong as Nora, who is excited to meet the various apparitions she summons, but also reveals her own underlying loneliness. McCaskill exudes youthful energy as the curious, flirtatious Gloria, and Flekier is charming as her shy but captivated young beau. These two have strong chemistry in acting and in dancing.
The production values here are strong, fitting the play into the Stockton House with a great deal of style and atmosphere. Robin McGee’s costumes, Michael Sullivan’s lighting, Abby Schmidt’s wig design, and James Robey’s choreography all contribute to the sometimes wistful, sometimes whimsical tone of this play. The setting works so well that it seems like the play was meant to be performed this way. It’s an experience that’s better seen than described, and a truly memorable production.
Will Mr. Merriwether Return From Memphis? is running at the Stockton House until May 21, 2017
Small Craft Warnings
by Tennessee Williams
Directed by Richard Corley
Photo by Peter Wochniak
Tennessee Williams Festival St. Louis
As the famous theme song to the TV show Cheers states, “sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name”. Well, sometimes you do, and sometimes you don’t. In Tennessee Williams’ 1971 play Small Craft Warnings, we meet a disparate collection of characters who are at turns familiar with one another and alienated. It’s a character study with characters who sometimes seem a little too broadly drawn, but they are fascinating all the same, and the cast is extremely strong.
Set in a seaside dive bar called “Monk’s”, the story doesn’t really have much of a plot. Monk (Peter Mayer) opens the bar and gradually, the regulars a few new faces drift in and tell their stories. There’s a little bit of character-based conflict, but mostly this is a character study, and another look at Williams’s common theme of loneliness. The characters include the emotional, opinionated Leona (Elizabeth Townsend), who is especially upset this evening because it’s the anniversary of the death of her beloved brother, a violinist who died young. Leona’s at the end of her rope with her swaggering, bigoted boyfriend Bill (Eric Dean White), who spends most of the play bragging about how he doesn’t work, hitting on the fragile, erratic Violet (Magan Wiles), and insulting various people, including Leona’s late brother because he was gay. There’s also Doc, a doctor who has lost his medical license but who still practices medicine anyway, including going to deliver a baby at the nearby trailer park. Steve (Jared Sanz-Agero), a cook, is sort of dating Violet but isn’t sure what to do with her most of the time. Also arriving at the bar unexpectedly are Quentin (John Bratkowski), an extremely jaded former screenwriter, and Bobby (Spencer Milford), an optimistic, free-spirited young man who has been riding his bike from Iowa to Mexico, and who the much older Quentin has picked up for a tryst. Basically, the characters take turns sharing monologues about their lives, all reflecting degrees of loneliness and despair except for the still idealistic Bobby, who reminds Leona of her late brother. There are a few volatile interactions, especially involving Leona, Violet, Bill, and Doc, but there isn’t really much of a story here. It’s essentially a collection of monologues with the framework of an evening at the bar. We see the dependence and neediness in some of the relationships, as well as the yearning for purpose and connection.
Although there isn’t a lot of story here, this play is an excellent showcase for the first-rate cast that has been assembled here. Townsend is loud, brash, and moody as Leona, credibly navigating her up-and-down emotional shifts, sparring effectively with White, who does a great job playing against type as the self-absorbed, smarmy Bill. Jeremy Lawrence is appropriately melancholy as the affable but sad, alcoholic Doc. Wiles, as the unpredictable as desperately lonely Violet, is a real standout, bringing a great deal of sympathy to her role of an aimless young woman who will take a small bit of attention wherever she can find it, and her scenes with Mayer’s world-weary Monk are particularly memorable. There are also strong performances from Bratkowski as the dejected, emotionally numb Quentin, Sanz-Agero as the affable but exasperated Steve, and Milford as the young, effusively optimistic Bobby.
The bar is represented in vivid detail by means of Dunsi Dai’s meticulous set, and the early 70’s-era costumes by Robin McGee suit the characters well. There’s also terrific lighting from Michael Sullivan that helps set the mood and tone of the play, and excellent sound by Michael Perkins. The beach setting of the play is well-realized here in sight, sound, and overall atmosphere.
Small Craft Warnings is full of strong character moments, but it’s essentially a talking play—a collection of characters sharing their hopes, and mostly their disappointments, with the audience. It’s Williams, though, and it has its profound moments, excellently played by a superb cast. There’s one more weekend left to see it, and it’s a worth catching while there’s still time.,
Small Craft Warnings is running at The .Zack until May 14, 2017
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