Shall I Compare Thee...

Suddenly Last Summer

Written by Tennessee Williams

Directed by Laith Zawawi

At the Adams House Pocket Theater

Through this weekend

THERE is nothing sudden about Suddenly Last Summer. In fact, the play is rather excruciating. Tennessee Williams' awesome drama combines all the horror of a 19th century gothic tale with a 20th century Freudian's worst nightmare.

With a madwoman--who may not really be crazy, though everyone tells her she is--a conniving old woman who screams "Oedipus" with every word to the squabbling heirs, Suddenly sounds like a soap opera set in Rappacini's garden. There's even an implied castration.

The play centers on the death of Sebastian Venable and the conflicting stories that arise out of it. Mother Venable--who was not present at the time--has one story, and Catharine Holly--her niece, who witnessed the death and who was put in a mental asylum by Venable--tells another, more offensive version. Both stories suggest that Sebastian's sexual character, not to mention sexual orientation, was some what dubious.

But it is not just the tortuous plot that is disturbing. Jacob Press, who plays a doctor specializing in lobotomies, delivers his lines like one of his own patients. Press' imitation of a New Orleans drawl is not only bad, it is also insulting. And it bears a great resemblance to that of a Romanian character which Director Laith Zawawi played in Rope last year.

It's odd that after the director spent so much time working on the accents of some characters, like Press, that others have none. A brief sojourn in Europe must have rid Catherine Holly (Anne Schott) of her accent, and Sister Felicity (Sally Milius) must have drowned hers in the ascetic life.

THEN there are the liberties Zawawi takes--and doesn't take--with the text. Although Williams intends the play to leave Catherine's sanity in question, he biases the audience's choice. In one scene Cathie complains that she lost yard privileges at the sanitarium because she refuses to eat fried grits. In the original play, that statement does not go unchallenged. "She lost yard privileges because she couldn't be trusted in the yard without constant supervision or even with it because she'd run to the fence and make signs to cars," nurse Sister Felicity says in the script--but not in this production.

And then there is the doctor again. Williams specifies that this character should be a handsome blond. At first, such instructions appear trivial, considering that they do come from an author who describes even the design of the plates in The Glass Menagerie. But later, when Sebastian's sexual proclivities are questioned and when Mrs. Venable tells the doctor that her son would have liked him, these stage notes become quite important. Catherine even comments, "Cousin Sebastian was famished for blonds," calling herself and Mrs. Venable his "procuresses."

You've probably guessed by now that Press, the actor playing the doctor, is not blond. There is nothing wrong with "nontraditional" casting, but doesn't it make more sense for the director to alter the lines of the person he chose for the role than to leave the audience puzzled?

Despite poor direction, Williams' words do manage to shine through some of the characters. Thea Henry is a vibrant Venable, and Jy Murphy dexterous in his minute role as Cathie's brother. And Sara Melson couldn't look more like a Southern woman of Williams' time. Still, Suddenly Last Summer can't end suddenly enough.