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 Entertainment | January 2007 
An Evening with Tennessee Williams
 Angela Corelis - PVNN
| | The show opens the 18th of January at the Santa Barbara Theatre, Olas Altas 351. It will play every Thursday evening, at 8 pm. Tickets, available at the Box Office or by reservation at 223-2048, are $300 pesos for dinner and theater and $200 pesos for just the theater performance. |
Tennessee Williams is said to have forged a poetic theater of raw psychological insight that fused realism and expressionism. Beginning Thursday, January 18 at the Santa Barbara Playhouse, one can see this demonstrated by local actors in vignettes of four of Williams better known plays.
Thomas Lanier Williams III (March 26, 1911–February 25, 1983), better known by the pen name Tennessee Williams, was a major American playwright and one of the prominent playwrights of the twentieth century. The name "Tennessee" was a name given to him by College friends nicknamed him "Tennessee" because of his southern accent and his father's Tennessee background.
He won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for A Streetcar Named Desire in 1948 and for Cat On a Hot Tin Roof in 1955. In addition to those two plays, The Glass Menagerie in 1945 and The Night of the Iguana in 1961 received the New York Drama Critics' Circle Awards.
His 1952 play The Rose Tattoo (dedicated to his partner, Frank Merlo), received the Tony Award for best play. Genre critics maintain that Williams writes in the Southern Gothic style.
Characters in his plays are often seen to be direct representations of his family members. Laura Wingfield in The Glass Menagerie is understood to be modelled on his sister Rose. Some biographers say that the character of Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire is based on her as well.
The motif of lobotomy also arises in Suddenly, Last Summer. Amanda Wingfield in The Glass Menagerie can easily be seen to represent Williams's mother. Many of his characters are considered autobiographical, including Tom Wingfield in The Glass Menagerie and Sebastian in Suddenly, Last Summer.
The Tennessee Williams' South is an in-depth interview of Williams, his childhood and his work, most of which was written in his beloved New Orleans, and the tip of Florida. It is a beautifully filmed and written interview.
He discusses five different plays and he introduces a scene from each, at that time we perform the scenes live. The last scene will be the original DVD cast in The Glass Menagerie.
The first vignette is The Last of the Solid Gold Watches. Aging shoe salesman Mistuh Charlie, portrayed by David McAuliff, settles into his shabby hotel room for what has been called his "death watch." McAuliff was last seen in The Odd Couple.
The Night of the Iguana had its Broadway premiere in 1961, and was based on 1948 short story by Williams. It has been made into movies twice, in 1964 and 2001, with a new movie version in production.
Set in 1940´s Mexico, the main character is an ex-minister turned tour guide, Reverend T. Lawrence Shannon, portrayed by David White, who has been accused of statutory rape of a seductive sixteen-year-old in his party.
This vignette is a dialogue between, Shannon and Hannah (Sharon Baughman White), the spinster daughter who taking care of her father. Hannah and Shannon form a deeply human bond. The Whites are remembered for their outstanding interpretation of Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde.
In Small Craft Warnings, Quentin, played by Jaime Coates, is a world weary homosexual who will do anything for even one moment of love to help him cope with the alienation and loneliness. This is Coates debut performance in Puerto Vallarta Little Theater. The play is set in a sleazy bar located somewhere on the California coast about 1973.
A Streetcar Named Desire, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1948. Norma Schuh is cast as Blanche. This play, considered an icon of its era, deals with a culture clash between two symbolic characters, Blanche DuBois—a pretentious, fading relic of the Old South—and Stanley Kowalski, a rising member of the industrial, inner-city immigrant class.
Able veteran of the theater, Beverly Rose, directs an Evening with Tennessee Williams. She has honed each performer to become immersed in their role. She had retired from the theater for a few years due to illness. Now, at 76 years old, she is back as strong and dynamic director as ever.
Rose worked for ten years as Director, producer and President of the longest producing little Theatre in California, The Porterville Barn Theatre, started by Peter Tewksbury. She then was hired part time to produce and direct four shows a year, at Porterville College.
As director of Theatre she produced and directed primarily big musical productions. She stayed with the College for 8 1/2 years until retirement in 1997 when after the death of her husband, Rose moved Puerto Vallarta.
In recent years she has appeared locally in the Katherine Hepburn part in On Golden Pond, directed the Odd Couple and more recently produced and directed Sylvia. Rose and the cast donated the net profit, $4800 dollars, from Sylvia to Make A Wish Mexico.
The cast and crew have agreed to donate their portion of the net profit of ticket sales to education. They selected the Biblioteca La Higuera Library and classes of Sally Conley in Pitillal. Williams would be pleased to know that his works are helping education. Ed Hutmacher, Owner of the Playhouse will donate a portion of his take to the Biblioteca Los Mangos (Puerto Vallarta Library.)
"An Evening with Tennessee Williams" is not only a cultural and enlightening experience, but delightful entertainment and also supports a worthy cause. Having our best local actors in it make it the "crème de la crème."
The show opens the 18th of January at the Santa Barbara Theatre, Olas Altas 351. It will play every Thursday evening, at 8 pm. Tickets, available at the Box Office or by reservation at 223-2048, are $300 pesos for dinner and theater and $200 pesos for just the theater performance. |
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