Friday March 2, 2007 SGN.org |
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Volume 35 Issue 09 |
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Saturday, Sep 06, 2008
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Stone Soup scores again with 5 X Tenn |
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| Stone Soup scores again with 5 X Tenn | ||
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A fresh evening of Tennessee Williams' short plays by Jacob Clark - SGN A&E Writer Stone Soup Theatre, Seattle's only theatre company dedicated to the one-act play, is offering a fresh evening of Tennessee Williams' short plays under the rubric 5 X Tenn. A well-produced evening of Williams is always a source of fascination, and this collection is especially a pleasure as none of the five plays presented have been seen before on the West Coast. In fact, these little gems were not published until 2004, although they were written from the late 1930's through the late 1950's, when Williams was at the height of his powers. All of them offer insights into Williams' longer works, and several of them should enter the American repertory for their own brilliance. The importance of 5 X Tenn goes beyond mere academic relevance. The evening is smartly directed and filled with wonderful performances. You don't have to be an aficionado of Tennessee Williams to thoroughly appreciate and enjoy these plays, as they are complete unto themselves. The first play of the evening, These Are the Stairs You Got to Watch, is the only disappointment. Concerning the first disastrous day on the job for a young usher in a seedy movie house, the play suffers from overpopulation (8 characters in a 20-minute play) and an uneven pace. Several of the actors take too much time preparing to speak, instead of biting their cues, and the play loses a sense of urgency, which is the main motivator of the characters. Despite my reservations, Alex Garnett inhabits the role of "Boy," the young new usher, with ease and assurance, offering the poetic and comedic elements of the character in equal, astonishing measure. As "Gladys", a teen vixen, Kayti Barnett gives a performance of infectious joy and sexual awakening. Maureen Miko establishes the correct, frantic tempo of "Cashier" and in two tiny scenes establishes the whole life of the character. In an evening filled with great lines, my favorite put-down is uttered here: "You fat old bug of a bunny!" Why Do You Smoke So Much, Lily? is an example of Williams at his best. About an intellectual young woman, her domineering mother and her descent into madness, the performances in this play alone would be worth the price of admission. Mimi Davis is marvelous as Mrs. Yorke, a pretentious scheming bully of a woman. Ms. Davis plumbs her role for comedic effect, and her light touch delineates a character cut from the same cloth as Amanda in The Glass Menagerie. Heather Gautschi gives a stunning, deeply-felt performance of the lost young lady, Lily. Williams ends the play with a terrific aria-like monologue that explores Lily's decomposition into serious mental illness, and Ms. Gautschi makes the most of every phrase. The third play of the evening, The Fat Man's Wife presents an acidic marital situation every bit as drunk and biting as George and Martha in Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolfe? The play takes place early New Year's morning in 1938, and features the seemingly loveless marriage of the fat man, Joe Cartwright (played with compulsive drunkenness by the not-so-fat Brandon Whitehead) and the wife, Vera Cartwright (played with hot intensity by Maureen Miko, one of Seattle's best actresses.) A young, idealistic playwright, Dennis Merriweather, appears after Joe leaves to continue his debauchery in a local bar. The playwright (given a star-turn performance by the handsome Ricky Coates) comes to convince the wife to run away with him on a tramp steamer. Her decision is the central action of the play. Brandon Whitehead plays a brilliant and very urbane D. H. Lawrence in Adam and Eve on a Ferry, a sweet little story about a meeting between Lawrence and a sensitive young woman, played with gusto by the versatile Heather Gautschi. The young woman comes to Lawrence to seek his advice regarding her chance encounter with a sensual man on a ferry boat. In the future, this will be a nice companion piece to Williams' other play about D. H. Lawrence, I Rise in Flames Cried the Phoenix. The only disappointment in this play is that Mimi Davis only gets two lines as Frieda Lawrence, D. H.'s spouse. The evening closes with the best play of the set, And Tell Sad Stories of the Deaths of Queens. Williams wrote this look at Gay life in 1959. It features a transvestite as the central character and Williams concluded at the time that the public wasn't ready to deal with Transgender heroes, and so never pursued its production. It is a terrific play, telling the story of Candy Delaney (Tony Villa) and his tragic attempt to create a home with a homophobic sailor, Karl (Aaron Odom). Mr. Villa is giving the best performance of the season, playing Candy both in and out of drag. He finds the exact meter in Williams' rhythmic writing to give the words such immediacy that every phrase seems newly thought and spontaneously uttered. The audience was mesmerized by the power of Villa's natural acting. It is a performance deeply felt and generously shared. It is 10 years since Villa last graced a Seattle stage. I hope he will stay this time, returning soon with another memorable role. Aaron Odom matches Villa's organic poetry with angry prosaic outbursts, threats and actions. Odom and Villa work so well together, that this play literally pops off the stage and into the guts of the audience. Odom also adds notes of comedy and irony to his Karl, and the result is a fully actualized, human portrait. Like Stanley Kowalski, Karl is a truly observed animal of a man. Ricky Coates and Alex Garnett complete the perfect cast, as a Gay couple who live upstairs. They provide humor and pathos as required of each moment, and could just as easily be a twenty-something couple circa 2007. Their youthful energy is simply adorable. John Clark's lighting design invokes different moods for each play, and this is no easy task on so small a stage, without fly space. Elsa Hiltner's costumes are inspired. They are not only true to the period of each play, but true to the character, paying attention to the actors' silhouettes and colors. Whether humorous, as in Mimi Davis' gown or stunning, as in Heather Gautschi's day dress in Adam and Eve on a Ferry, they are always absolutely right. Julie Beckman has evoked these great performances, and blocked the actors so there isn't a bad seat in the house. Her blocking for And Tell Sad Stories of the Deaths of Queens effortlessly moves from one gorgeous stage picture to the next. 5 X Tenn is the most important opening of the season thus far. If you can only attend one show this month, be sure it is this one. Tickets are at Ticket Window, www.ticketwindowonline.com, or 206-325-6500, or at Stone Soup 206-633-1883. |
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