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New End Theatre presents

Dreamers

Three Short Plays by Tennessee Williams

Directed by Ninon Jerome

New End Theatre

23 Sept – 10 Oct 09

ary Couzens

A review by Mary Couzens for EXTRA! EXTRA!

Productions of plays by Tennessee Williams are always notable for, if nothing else, their colourful use of language. The three short plays featured on this triple bill exude all the linguistic nuances of the downtrodden and out there, sometimes way out, that ardent Williams fans could ever hope for.

The potentially heart-breaking This Property is Condemned is first up, with recent Guildhall graduate Anna Doolan in her professional theatrical debut as abandoned girl on the threshold of womanhood Willie. The play finds Willie balancing on the rail-road tracks near her former family home, her family all having either died or run off.  Local boy Tom who happens upon Willie, wearing her late older sister’s dress and heavy for her age makeup seems fascinated by her as she fantasizes about her circumstances, embroidering them with fantasies of her own in the process. Having seen a production of this short, bittersweet gem at the Finborough Theatre earlier this year with an astoundingly naturalistic fourteen year old actress as Willie, (whose name sadly escapes me), I must confess that my hopes were possibly, un-naturally high for this piece. However, Doolan, as mature looking as she seems by comparison to her counterpart, still manages to stir the heart-strings at times, albeit, ever so lightly, like the wisp of a soft summer breeze, though the play is set during a southern winter. Doolan however, is handily upstaged by her well played would be paramour Tom, brought to painfully comic life by Jos Vantyler, who intermittently allows all of his teenage character’s suppressed male urges to ripple across the surface of his face and body. Vantyler also plays a supporting role opposite Susannah York as Mrs. Hardwick-Moore in The Lady of Larkspur Lotion, and a leading Brandoesque aka Stanley Kowalski role in play three, Speak to Me Like the Rain.

As one of our writers recently relished what he’d viewed as a masterful performance from Ms. York in a play at the White Bear Theatre, and I’d once written a well received essay illustrating how Ms. York’s (and film director Tony Richardson’s) Swinging ‘60’s take on Tom Jones’ 18th century love interest, Miss Sophie Weston, differed from Fielding’s, during which I’d researched her lengthily career, I was very eager to watch the illustrious actress play a difficult Blanche Du Bois type role. However, it must be said that Ms. York was not really convincing as an aging prostitute. Despite my determined summoning of faded childhood memories of aging ‘ladies of the evening’ I’d seen in my down at heel neighbourhood in Philly, I couldn’t recall ever seeing any such woman even remotely near her age. Granted, Ms. York does not herself, look or seem like a Septuagenarian.  Though, in all honesty, I must add that neither does she look or seem like a prostitute, of any age. And I mean that as a compliment to her character. However, as Mrs. Hardwick-Moore, a woman of reduced circumstances who is struggling to retain a modicum of gentility despite the lowliness of her past and, according to the script, present calling, Ms. York does convey a touching sense of the hopelessness women who’ve set great store by and/or earned their keep from their good looks tend to feel as their age begins to show. Her portrayal of Mrs. Hardwick-Moore as a fragile, ‘kept’ woman got me thinking about that aspect of things, particularly from a feminist perspective, which subsequently also enabled me to appreciate the feelings of vulnerability and waste inherent to the role. Once again, Jos Vantyler offered more than able support to Ms. York as a robed and slippered drunkard author residing in the same fleabag hotel as Mrs. Hardwick-Moore, who shares her penchant for day-dreams of better times and places.  Invariably, this drinking young author is yet another incarnation of Williams himself.

Speak to Me Like the Rain, the third offering, really conveys a strong sense of Williams, the poet. Subtle sound design by Mark Dunne successfully heightens the bleak NY hotel room aesthetic.  However, the unnamed, archetypal couple of the play, played by Lysette Anthony and the versatile Jos Vantyler seem a tad mismatched. It could have been down to Press Night jitters but there was a distinct lack of chemistry between them and as a result, what were meant to be the more heated portions of their scene failed to ignite as they might have. The voluptuous Ms. Anthony seductively attired in a thin night dress displaying ample cleavage while waiting for her wayward young husband to return home did little to convince the audience that her lusty partner must look elsewhere for his pleasures, especially as she so visibly pined for his physical presence in his absence. As this is a play I am not overly familiar with, whenever scenes wandered off into unconvincing territory, I found myself focusing on the poetic repetition of the play’s phrases, such as the title one, ‘Speak to Me Like the Rain’. Despite his obvious acting ability, Vantyler’s Brando brooding did not seem suited to either him or his role, one calling for someone with much more blatant and, effortless animal magnetism.  The fact that he’d already made a very convincing teenager in Condemned and was also very suited to the sensitive young man he’d played in Larkspur may have clouded my judgment in relation to his performance in this piece somewhat, or, it may have just been that as an actor he’d had too many directions to stretch himself in within the context of a one hour, interval-less performance. And despite the fact that Lysette Anthony’s list of credits in the programme is longer than those of Williams and Ms. York combined, her acting in this play seemed more feigned than focused, which may have been down to varying directing by Ninon Jerome. Granted, Williams’ characters tend towards the surreal and, highly, often, oddly recognisable neurotic, but in scenes in which Anthony is playing a woman desperate to overcome the deep passion she feels for her no good husband, she did not convince that such was really the case. Kim Hunter, in the film (and original Broadway version) of A Streetcar Named Desire conveyed that phenomena as a ‘repress as needed’ smouldering fire whose flames were inadvertently fanned whenever her Stanley, his animalistic nostrils flaring, drew near, as evidenced by his characteristically Williams phrase, ‘Let’s get them coloured lights goin’ baby!’ as he carries Stella up the fire escape to their shabby boudoir. Doggedly underplaying that particular, trademark scenario up until the man responsible for firing off those impulsive lights draws dangerously near definitely does the business. Of course, chemistry that is almost palpable, despite the fact that it exists between two seeming opposites, is also a must in such scenarios.

All and all, despite its doubtful moments, this trio forms a curiosity piece of sorts, in that it is a combination of Williams plays that one does not generally see performed together. And, as the programme states: ‘these plays depict dreamers – their life as it is and their passion for life as it might be.’ In that context, this production is still one that is well worth seeing, especially as it is also notable for some of its more poignant, and/or wryly funny and convincing moments of acting/dreaming.

http://www.offwestendtheatres.co.uk/index.php?where=new_end&showid=478

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