Heady Summer Fare At TheatreWorks New Milford
2008-07-25
Pre-frontal lobotomy, an operation in which the part of the brain that controls emotional impulses, is surgically removed, is probably most familiar to modern audiences from the movie One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, in which the evil Nurse Ratchett gets her ultimate revenge on Jack Nicholson as the rebellious patient Randle MacMurphy.
In real life it was performed thousands of times in the 1930S and 40S, before the advent of psychotropic medications. Sometimes the operation was actually requested by parents as a way of controlling their unmanageable children.
One famous example was JFK's sister, Rosemary, who was lobotomized (and reduced to an infantile state) in order to stop her from sneaking out of her convent school at night and hooking up with boys.
Another was Rose Williams, sister of the playwright Tennessee Williams, whose parents authorized the surgery in an attempt to quiet her schizophrenic symptoms. The results were equally disastrous, and Williams, who was very close to his sister, never forgave them.
Long recognized as one of America's theatrical giants, Williams, like Eugene O'Neill, wrote plays based on the unbearable dramatic tension created by building confrontations between strong personalities, desperately seeking to repress excruciating truths. One such work, SUDDENLY LAST SUMMER, is currently on the boards at TheatreWorks New Milford.
Set in the Garden District of 1930s New Orleans, SUDDENLY LAST SUMMER is dominated by Violet Venable, who seeks to preserve the memory of her beloved son, Sebastian, a poet who was murdered the previous summer by a band of Spanish ruffians.
To this end, she is pressuring a young neurologist to perform a lobotomy on her niece, Catherine Holly, the young woman who was with Sebastian at the time of his death. As she explains to the doctor, Catherine's horrific delusions about what happened are so damaging to Sebastian's reputation, and so hurtful to Violet, that they are clearly insane, and must be quieted.
She backs up her request with an enthusiastic interest in the doctor's research, and a promise of financial support for his work. At the same time, she invokes the cooperation of Catherine's mother and brother by dangling a legacy from Sebastian in front of them. If they consent to the operation, they will each inherit $50,000 — a life-changing sum for people caught up in the Great Depression.
On the other hand, if they allow Catherine to continue spreading her "stories" Violet will see to it that the money is tied up in probate forever. Because the doctor insists on hearing what Catherine has to say before he commits himself, she gets the chance to confront Violet in the garden of the Venable home. Here she reveals the fact that Sebastian was a pedophile, who used the women he traveled with — first his mother, and then his young cousin— as a ruse to attract young boys.
This is heavy material, but in the hands of TheatreWorks New Milford, it is given an amazingly powerful production.
One of the finest actresses in the area, Noel Desiato is devastating as the coldly manipulative, iron-willed monster, who would actually destroy the girl to preserve her own fantasy of her son's whole-hearted devotion to his mother.
She is well matched in this case by Newtowner Keilly Gillen McQuail as the hysterical, traumatized young woman who is determined to be heard.
In the middle is Jeremiah Maestas as the honorable Dr Cukrowicz, inexorably caught up in the horrifying story as he gradually realizes its validity.
Joe Russo directs this play beautifully, getting flawless performances from his secondary characters as well — KC Ross as Violets nervously scuttling companion, David Hutchinson as Catherine's smug younger brother who has big plans on how to spend his inheritance, Katherine Almquist as their mother who is worn out from her role as Violet's impoverished sister-in-law, and Robbin Christiani as a nun from the asylum with all the charisma of a prison guard.
Best of all is the set, also designed by Mr. Russo, which captures the malevolent lush-ness of an overgrown garden, a mixture of moss covered statuary, tropical orchids, and sinister Venus fly traps, that serves as a physical symbol of the moral corruption at the heart of the play.
Clearly this is not summer froth, but as often seems, to happen up in New Milford in July and August, Suddenly Last Summer represents Theatre-Works at its best. The house was filled, as it should be.