Summer and Smoke

The Association of Stage Managers and Stage Handlers is currently picketing Lyric Productions' second try at winter stock. Whether the pickets are necessary is open to some question. Lyric presents one of Tennessee Williams' great plays, with a fine female lead performance. For the rest, the production is semi-professional, in the sense that only half the cast performs with much competence. Given a bit of amateurish inadequacy, however, Summer and Smoke can be enjoyable to those who just want to see a good Williams play or to those who admire a good single performance in the midst of discouraging surroundings.

The women in Summer and Smoke are on the whole competent, but the men are lame, and the result is a limping pace. The superiority of the women is partially because Williams' hysterical females are naturally rich roles. Alma Winemiller, the sexually-repressed daughter of a prurient minister, is certainly a ready-made vehicle for fine acting, and Georgia Boyko fills the part admirably. Simultaneously repulsing and desiring the advances of young Dr. John Buchanan, Miss Boyko portrays her hysteria with a certain delicacy and restraint which make her character both distinctive and convincing. When she is severe with her mother, who has herself been driven insane by an unfulfilled sexual craving, Miss Boyko's high-pitched petulance makes the similarity of their situations apparent. Throughout, she acts, and reacts, with sensitivity and energy.

In contrast with Miss Boyko's intensity is Herb Adams' slothful behavior as young Dr. John. Although John Buchanan is a casual and lecherous character, he is not indifferent to the people around him--which makes Adams' frequent failure to react to others' lines somewhat unsatisfactory. When he does react, it is by mugging or with a boogey slouch which gives an unfortunate impression of adolescent youth. Because Adams seems unable to throw himself completely into the part, and in spite of Miss Boyko's strenuous efforts to rush through her lines in order to buoy the play, the pace lags.

Miss Boyko, however, gets some good support from Lucia French, who plays the insane mother with cunning simplicity, and from Mary Ann Donahue, an appropriately lively Sophie Newcomb school girl, who captures the young doctor. Sharon Gans, playing the gossipy Mrs. Bassett, has a good deal of trouble with her accent, but this only brings out the humor in her part. Although the supporting males are generally ineffectual, at least they aren't often on stage. Patricia Guest, as the Mexican charmer Rosa Gonzales, is perfectly sensual, but unfortunately a little too sensual. For some reason, when confronted by the elder Dr. Buchanan she does a sort of serpentine sidle, the absurdity of which might have been foreseen by Director Judith Barker.

The director also shows a little uncertainty as to the character of young Dr. John--moments of real sympathy are followed without the slightest pause by moments of animal sensuality. Equally crude and abrupt is the lighting, which changes not at all smoothly. The musical background is occasionally appropriate--most of it is urgent and discordant, indicating psychological collapse, but clashing stridently with the Southern scene. The set, however, is good enough, and with Miss Boyko upon it, it becomes superb. For her, and her alone, Summer and Smoke is a modest triumph: if she does not get her man, at least she overshadows him.