| Williams is opera. His speech isn’t just lyrical, it’s impetuous. Even as it’s strictly poetical, it’s free. And always trembling. With his lesser plays—ORPHEUS DESCENDING is among them—the melodrama often distracts from the heightened feeling which is almost always found in his language. If the dramaturgy is slack it can obscure this feeling; the language may be lost. Everyone’s struggling to animate the story here, which is at once threadbare and overstuffed, but it’s the speech that’s alive. None of these actors are abandoned enough—no one is unfettered—and so the play struggles to catch heat. Still, it’s always a pleasure to hear Williams even if you have to strain a bit. There’s a moment in this play when a sheriff describes the young beauty at its center—Valentine Xavier!—as possibly a wanted man. Xavier says: “I’m not wanted.” And the sheriff replies: “A boy like you is always wanted.” It’s a nonchalant, sly shrug but pure Williams. No one is unaware of or above yearning. But if desire isn’t full tilt, it doesn’t sing. |
