Gripping drama "Suddenly Last Summer"
2008-07-16
An air of uneasy menace hangs like a musky fog over the set of "Suddenly Last Summer" at TheatreWorks in New Milford, with green foliage wrapping defensive arms around everything. This is the garden of the deceased poet Sebastian Venable and it lacks only a "corpse" plant that smells of decaying flesh when it blooms to complete a sanctuary for the depraved.
Obviously, this is not a comedy. Tennessee Williams' disturbing drama from 1958 is a tough one to stage -- it requires a director who can balance the lurid with the poetic, two extremely good actresses and one creepy garden. TheatreWorks director Joseph Russo obviously respects the work of the playwright and has kept the contrasting elements of degradation and decency in this play in balance. He also designed the set and his forbidding leafy retreat greets us as we enter the theater with gripping performances by Noel Desiato and Keilly Gillen McQuail soon to follow.
"Summer" was originally one half of a double bill by Williams entitled "Garden District." The program opener, "Something Unspoken," about two closeted lesbians, was soon jettisoned and "Summer" expanded into a full-length play. There is justifiable criticism about the work's dependence upon storytelling rather than story enactment, but the playwright's powerful pen and the opportunity the play gives its two leading ladies provides such a jolt this caveat is easily overlooked.
The time is 1936 and the garden in question is in the Venable home in New Orleans. There, Sebastian's mother Violet (Desiato) has embarked on a crusade to protect the reputation of her son who had died the previous summer under grotesque and questionable circumstances.
In the company of his attractive cousin Catherine (McQuail), Sebastian had traveled to the coast of Spain seeking inspiration for his poetry -- supposedly. In truth, his trip, as all his summer trips before had been before, was in search of sex with the young men of the area. That is, if you believe Catherine's story of what happened "last summer."
Now confined to a local asylum, she remains a victim of the psychological trauma caused by the things she witnessed.
To keep her from "babbling" her story to the world, Violet has arranged for Dr. Cukrowicz (Jeremiah Maestas), a neurosurgeon, to perform a silencing lobotomy on her. To insure his cooperation, Violet holds out a carrot in the form of an endowment for his work.
But the doctor won't operate until he has had an opportunity to hear Catherine's story for himself, and under the influence of a "truth" serum, her rambling, shocking recollection of Sebastian's last days is harrowing theater that will leave you chilled and possibly repulsed.
Ironically, Desiato, who scored an extraordinary success earlier this year at TheatreWorks in "Tea at Five," a one-woman show about Katherine Hepburn, is taking the part Hepburn played in the film version of "Summer." As the mark of a good actress, her chilly portrayal of Violet hasn't a trace of Hepburn in it; instead she masks the woman's cold heart with fluttering handkerchiefs and affected Southern charm. As the original enabler of her son's predatory ways, she is perhaps as emotionally unbalanced as he was. "Sebastian and Violet," "Violet and Sebastian," she sighs, remembering their excursions to fancy spas where she held court while her son trolled for sex.
Catherine's long, near monologue at the end of the play is a demanding turn and McQuail, known for her roles in musicals at this theater, rises to the occasion with a seamless, passionate recounting of Sebastian's death. Bathed in hot white light like the sun on the Spanish beach where death became her cousin's final trick, she registers the growing dismay and ultimate disgust she felt as the love for her cousin eroded in the face of his debauchery. As the story escalates in terror, so does McQuail's intensity; she leaves the audience breathless and dazzled.
Even though his role is more of a plot expediter than a character, Maestas comes across as warmly sympathetic as the principle-bound doctor. Katherine Almquist and David Hutchinson are skillfully unpleasant as Catherine's selfish mother and brother, and KC Ross scurries about in fear as Violet's harried companion. Robbin Christiani is Sister Felicity, a rules-bound nun who escorts Catherine from the asylum.
In addition to his evocative set, Russo, in collaboration with Bill Hughes, has dressed the cast in period-perfect costumes that add to the production's seductive look. "Suddenly Last Summer" is strong stuff and under Russo's sensitive direction the TheatreWorks production delivers it undiluted.