SHOWING : October 11, 2001 - November 04, 2001
[REVIEW THIS PRODUCTION]
|
In a comic and heartbreaking turn, Tennessee Williams weaves the dreams of four women “of a certain age” in 1930s St. Louis. Desires for a perfect marriage, a social position, and a contented life collide with the pathos and fragility only this American master could craft.
|
|
[REVIEW THIS PRODUCTION]
Lovely, but ...
| by Dedalus |
|
Monday, October 22, 2001 |
4.0
|
This is another Alliance Case of outstanding acting with a wonderful script overcoming a series of questionable staging decisions. I was amazed at how the performances of these four women made what I had always thought a sub-standard Williams scipt come alive with the poetry and emotion we've come to expect from his classics. Obviously my first reading of the script was superficial and just plain wrong.
But the staging. Why does the Alliance insist on building these wonderful-to-look-at sets just filled with illogical architectural points? In this case, we have a rounded kitchen island which would abut a wall, a bedroom arranged with no walking space between beds and (invisible) wall, and a living-room/dinette combination with more square footage than a luxury loft (this is a supposedly lower-class efficiency appartment. Add to this no window backing, which gave the appearance of night during a play taking place in the early afternoon, and a pointless scrim affect, and we have a case of designers doing everything they can to distract us from the wonderful work being done on the stage.
The decision to really fry chicken on stage during Act I was also a distraction -- I found myself paying more attention to wondering why the characters were letting it burn than on the scene itself.
But, once we get into Act II, when the characters are clear, the battlelines are drawn, and the set is "background noise" rather than distraction, this play soars.
Please see it, but spend the pre-show time forgetting the goofiness of the set, so it doesn't distract ... [POST A COMMENT REGARDING THIS REVIEW] |
[REVIEW THIS PRODUCTION]
|
|
