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Splendid 'Hotel Plays' show a young Tennessee Williams finding his recurring themes, characters
hotel-plays-2015.jpg
George Sanchez plays Mr. Charlie in 'The Last of My Solid Gold Watches,' one of a quartet of one-act works by Tennessee Williams in 'Hotel Plays,' staged at the Hermann-Grima House as part of the annual Tennessee Williams/New Orleans Literary Festival. Andrew Calhoun, seen in mirror, plays the musician. (Ride Hamilton)
Theodore P. Mahne, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune By Theodore P. Mahne, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune
on March 28, 2015 at 10:14 AM, updated March 28, 2015 at 8:05 PM
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One of last year's surprise hits of the annual Tennessee Williams/New Orleans Literary Festival was "Hotel Plays," a collection of both early and late-career works by Williams that shared the common thread of being set in a hotel room or rooming house.
Revised this year under the unified vision of a single director, and focusing on four works that were all written in roughly the same period of the playwright's life, "Hotel Plays" is an even better achievement. Not only is it an unqualified hit, it is a concise, revelatory look at characters and themes that Williams would embrace in later, fully developed dramas.
Staged within the rooms and courtyard of the historic Hermann-Grima House in the French Quarter, the sense of place resonates through each piece. Divided into groups of about 30, the audiences take in the four plays in different orders as they are maneuvered through the house.
Two of the plays, "The Lady of Larkspur Lotion" and "Mister Paradise," were included in last year's edition of "Hotel Plays." This year's production also includes "The Last of My Solid Gold Watches" and "Lord Byron's Love Letter."
All four were written in the early 1940s, pre-dating Williams' first major success, "The Glass Menagerie." All but "Mister Paradise" were published together in the collection, "27 Wagons Full of Cotton." Rediscovered among Williams' manuscripts in a university repository, "Mister Paradise" was not published until 2005.
As the audience members are escorted from room to room between the plays, they also are given a brief tour of the historic house. These interludes are both practical, allowing one play to be finished before the next, but also serve to transform the house itself into a distinct character of the collected works. One easily can imagine it as an old rooming house in the Vieux Carre of Williams' early days.
In addition, the intimacy of these small works is enhanced by the close quarters of the actors and audiences. When the performers are, at points, literally inches away from the audience, there's no room for false moves.
Director David Kaplan uses that intimacy to tie the four pieces together with the common threads among these characters. Distinctively creatures of the old French Quarter that Williams knew from his earliest visits, they are passionate figures, often artistic, always eccentric, skirting through life on the bohemian edges.
In several cases, they would be almost pitiable. But from the drunken failed poet of "Mister Paradise" to the tired out salesman of "The Last of My Solid Gold Watches," Kaplan and his fine cast of performers find the dignity of each of these characters. They may be fallen figures, and even hope may have faded, but relief, even redemption, remains. Presented together, this quartet of one-acts serves as a collection of poetic snapshots of the human condition. Each character in these four works truly depends on the kindness of strangers.
In "The Last of My Solid Gold Watches," George Sanchez shows what a master he is at creating a character, taking what is a fairly standard archetype -- the run-down salesman -- and finding the nuanced details that bring his entire story vividly to life in a single brief scene. As Mr. Charlie, the shoe salesman on what may his last circuit around the Delta, he attempts to share his story and the life lessons learned with a disinterested younger pup. As he rages against the dying of the light, his sad desperation is palpable.
Joel Derby is effective as Harper, the slick young man in the shiny suit. Perhaps reminiscent of Mr. Charlie's younger self, he is cruelly matter of fact, a modern figure who has spurned the gentility of Mr. Charlie's life and times. Andrew Calhoun Jr. is moving as the bellboy, whose voice comes through his music, played on a mournful saxophone.
"The Lady of Larkspur Lotion" and "Mister Paradise" virtually meld into a single work focusing on a pair of characters who live in their own magical world, in which Blanche DuBois might be a neighbor ("I want magic!"), in order to escape the harsh realities of the sad situations that life has thrust upon them.
The refined Mrs. Hardwicke-Moore and her landlady, Mrs. Wire (who would be a primary figure in Williams' "Vieux Carre"), are battling over the long-overdue rent. The equally delusional writer who also rooms in Mrs. Wire's cockroach-ridden boarding house, comes to Mrs. Hardwicke-Moore's defense, recognizing a fellow lost soul.
Kathryn Talbot and Desiree Ledet reprise their roles as, respectively, Mrs. Hardwicke-Moore and Mrs. Wire, from last year's production. Each draw out the humor and pathos of the piece with gusto. Robert Mitchell presents the writer as being in an elegant stupor, just drunk enough to maintain the illusions that he and Talbot's character share.
Mitchell's tone shifts to a deeper poignancy as the completely lost Anthony Paradise, wallowing in his own misery but somehow content, until his world threatens to be shaken by a passionate young woman who turns up after having discovered a volume of his early poems. Francesca McKenzie reprises her role as the girl, who has undergone a life-changing epiphany by discovering his work. The brief scene is a touching treatise on the redemptive strength of art.
With "Lord Byron's Love Letter," an archly melodramatic work, Kaplan takes the most artistic liberties in shifting the tone. The results, however, are exquisite. A pair of tourists arrive at a home in the Quarter to see a purported love letter from Lord Byron, written to a woman's grandmother. Showing the rare, nearly sacred epistle is the chief means of support for the spinster and the old woman living with her. It is the over-the-top stuff of verismo opera. Indeed, the work was developed as a one-act opera by composer Raffaello de Banfield, with a libretto by Williams.
Kaplan shifts the tone from melodrama to comedy, and has the cast to pull it off. Francine Segal perfectly plays the prim and properly coutured and coiffed touring matron, giddily exploring a slight bit of the exotic Vieux Carre, pulling along and nagging her drunken husband, well played by Jackson Townsend.
Christine McMurdo-Wallis gives a bravura performance as the spinster who regales her visitors with the story of the letter -- for a price. The old woman, who goes mostly unseen, hidden by a curtain in the doorway, is effectively played by Matthew Story, which leads to Kaplan's chief twist in the tale. We're left to comically wonder about the veracity of the letter. Are the spinster and "old woman" crazy or are they con artists? Or, like so many of Williams' most fascinating creations, somewhere in between.
Check into "Hotel Plays" to find out. Final performances are Saturday (March 28) at 12:30 p.m. and Sunday at 1:30 p.m.
TENNESSEE WILLIAMS FESTIVAL 2015
John Waters returns to New Orleans on Thursday -- and Friday -- for another trip around 'This Filthy World'
Tennessee Williams Fest 2015 folds Saints & Sinners spinoff into one New Orleans summit
Music at the Tennessee Williams Festival: a quartet of events Sunday, March 29, including poems inspired by Amede Ardoin
Tennessee Williams Festival 2015: A serious, but not snooty affair
Upstairs in Tennessee Williams' cheap rooming house
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Splendid 'Hotel Plays' show a young Tennessee Williams finding his recurring themes, characters
hotel-plays-2015.jpg
George Sanchez plays Mr. Charlie in 'The Last of My Solid Gold Watches,' one of a quartet of one-act works by Tennessee Williams in 'Hotel Plays,' staged at the Hermann-Grima House as part of the annual Tennessee Williams/New Orleans Literary Festival. Andrew Calhoun, seen in mirror, plays the musician. (Ride Hamilton)
Theodore P. Mahne, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune By Theodore P. Mahne, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune
on March 28, 2015 at 10:14 AM, updated March 28, 2015 at 8:05 PM
View/Post Comments
One of last year's surprise hits of the annual Tennessee Williams/New Orleans Literary Festival was "Hotel Plays," a collection of both early and late-career works by Williams that shared the common thread of being set in a hotel room or rooming house.
Revised this year under the unified vision of a single director, and focusing on four works that were all written in roughly the same period of the playwright's life, "Hotel Plays" is an even better achievement. Not only is it an unqualified hit, it is a concise, revelatory look at characters and themes that Williams would embrace in later, fully developed dramas.
Staged within the rooms and courtyard of the historic Hermann-Grima House in the French Quarter, the sense of place resonates through each piece. Divided into groups of about 30, the audiences take in the four plays in different orders as they are maneuvered through the house.
Two of the plays, "The Lady of Larkspur Lotion" and "Mister Paradise," were included in last year's edition of "Hotel Plays." This year's production also includes "The Last of My Solid Gold Watches" and "Lord Byron's Love Letter."
All four were written in the early 1940s, pre-dating Williams' first major success, "The Glass Menagerie." All but "Mister Paradise" were published together in the collection, "27 Wagons Full of Cotton." Rediscovered among Williams' manuscripts in a university repository, "Mister Paradise" was not published until 2005.
As the audience members are escorted from room to room between the plays, they also are given a brief tour of the historic house. These interludes are both practical, allowing one play to be finished before the next, but also serve to transform the house itself into a distinct character of the collected works. One easily can imagine it as an old rooming house in the Vieux Carre of Williams' early days.
In addition, the intimacy of these small works is enhanced by the close quarters of the actors and audiences. When the performers are, at points, literally inches away from the audience, there's no room for false moves.
Director David Kaplan uses that intimacy to tie the four pieces together with the common threads among these characters. Distinctively creatures of the old French Quarter that Williams knew from his earliest visits, they are passionate figures, often artistic, always eccentric, skirting through life on the bohemian edges.
In several cases, they would be almost pitiable. But from the drunken failed poet of "Mister Paradise" to the tired out salesman of "The Last of My Solid Gold Watches," Kaplan and his fine cast of performers find the dignity of each of these characters. They may be fallen figures, and even hope may have faded, but relief, even redemption, remains. Presented together, this quartet of one-acts serves as a collection of poetic snapshots of the human condition. Each character in these four works truly depends on the kindness of strangers.
In "The Last of My Solid Gold Watches," George Sanchez shows what a master he is at creating a character, taking what is a fairly standard archetype -- the run-down salesman -- and finding the nuanced details that bring his entire story vividly to life in a single brief scene. As Mr. Charlie, the shoe salesman on what may his last circuit around the Delta, he attempts to share his story and the life lessons learned with a disinterested younger pup. As he rages against the dying of the light, his sad desperation is palpable.
Joel Derby is effective as Harper, the slick young man in the shiny suit. Perhaps reminiscent of Mr. Charlie's younger self, he is cruelly matter of fact, a modern figure who has spurned the gentility of Mr. Charlie's life and times. Andrew Calhoun Jr. is moving as the bellboy, whose voice comes through his music, played on a mournful saxophone.
"The Lady of Larkspur Lotion" and "Mister Paradise" virtually meld into a single work focusing on a pair of characters who live in their own magical world, in which Blanche DuBois might be a neighbor ("I want magic!"), in order to escape the harsh realities of the sad situations that life has thrust upon them.
The refined Mrs. Hardwicke-Moore and her landlady, Mrs. Wire (who would be a primary figure in Williams' "Vieux Carre"), are battling over the long-overdue rent. The equally delusional writer who also rooms in Mrs. Wire's cockroach-ridden boarding house, comes to Mrs. Hardwicke-Moore's defense, recognizing a fellow lost soul.
Kathryn Talbot and Desiree Ledet reprise their roles as, respectively, Mrs. Hardwicke-Moore and Mrs. Wire, from last year's production. Each draw out the humor and pathos of the piece with gusto. Robert Mitchell presents the writer as being in an elegant stupor, just drunk enough to maintain the illusions that he and Talbot's character share.
Mitchell's tone shifts to a deeper poignancy as the completely lost Anthony Paradise, wallowing in his own misery but somehow content, until his world threatens to be shaken by a passionate young woman who turns up after having discovered a volume of his early poems. Francesca McKenzie reprises her role as the girl, who has undergone a life-changing epiphany by discovering his work. The brief scene is a touching treatise on the redemptive strength of art.
With "Lord Byron's Love Letter," an archly melodramatic work, Kaplan takes the most artistic liberties in shifting the tone. The results, however, are exquisite. A pair of tourists arrive at a home in the Quarter to see a purported love letter from Lord Byron, written to a woman's grandmother. Showing the rare, nearly sacred epistle is the chief means of support for the spinster and the old woman living with her. It is the over-the-top stuff of verismo opera. Indeed, the work was developed as a one-act opera by composer Raffaello de Banfield, with a libretto by Williams.
Kaplan shifts the tone from melodrama to comedy, and has the cast to pull it off. Francine Segal perfectly plays the prim and properly coutured and coiffed touring matron, giddily exploring a slight bit of the exotic Vieux Carre, pulling along and nagging her drunken husband, well played by Jackson Townsend.
Christine McMurdo-Wallis gives a bravura performance as the spinster who regales her visitors with the story of the letter -- for a price. The old woman, who goes mostly unseen, hidden by a curtain in the doorway, is effectively played by Matthew Story, which leads to Kaplan's chief twist in the tale. We're left to comically wonder about the veracity of the letter. Are the spinster and "old woman" crazy or are they con artists? Or, like so many of Williams' most fascinating creations, somewhere in between.
Check into "Hotel Plays" to find out. Final performances are Saturday (March 28) at 12:30 p.m. and Sunday at 1:30 p.m.
TENNESSEE WILLIAMS FESTIVAL 2015
John Waters returns to New Orleans on Thursday -- and Friday -- for another trip around 'This Filthy World'
Tennessee Williams Fest 2015 folds Saints & Sinners spinoff into one New Orleans summit
Music at the Tennessee Williams Festival: a quartet of events Sunday, March 29, including poems inspired by Amede Ardoin
Tennessee Williams Festival 2015: A serious, but not snooty affair
Upstairs in Tennessee Williams' cheap rooming house
All Stories | All Photos | All Videos
View/Post Comments
Related Stories
Drama unfolds at Tennessee Williams Festival 2015, comedy, too
Upstairs in Tennessee Williams' cheap rooming house