| re: ORPHEUS DESCENDING Today | |
| Last Edit: lordofspeech 03:36 pm EDT 07/19/23 | |
| Posted by: lordofspeech 03:31 pm EDT 07/19/23 | |
| In reply to: re: ORPHEUS DESCENDING Today - schauspieler 08:20 pm EDT 07/16/23 | |
|
|
|
| I admire Sergius’ succinctness, and he always is clear. But it is hard to be succinct about Williams. His plots were not always strong enough to support his magnificent characters, and, sometimes, his protagonists were so lost we couldn’t get behind them to root for them, which is required of a « well-made play. ». One of Yale’s brilliant teachers, Leon Katz, would hold Williams’ SUMMER AND SMOKE up as a constitutionally inverted play because we can’t root for Alma until way late in the play because she herself doesn’t know what she wants. He spoke of it as a development of the play of character rather than of plot. There are elements of this…the fascinating, voluble character without a sound dramatic trajectory, in many of Tennessee’s works. The soundness of his three big successes, Menageries, Streetcar, and Cat, is because of their grounding in reality (and, especially, in a financial reality). But one still can thrill to the uncertain swoops and swirls in Iguana, Orpheus, and Sweet Bird and treasure them despite their insubstantial underpinnings. As I remember, Vanessa Redgrave got darn good notices for floridly inhabiting the florid character of Lady in that Orpheus revival, though she lost me. But the very melodramatic plot is off somewhere to the side in that play, with her husband and the town and the ‘confectionary.’ So too, the Boss Finley plot which drives Sweet Bird is almost 180 degrees away from The Princess. Just to say…he’s worth it even when all there are are the fascinating characters and the lush language, which I think was Sergius’ point. But we’re always hoping a director and his troupe can find ways to anchor the storylines, as well. (I left out Suddenly Last Summer, because it’s short, but its plot (will the lobotomy happen) is quite sturdy and supportive of the characters, despite the hallucinatory splashiness of the Sebastian narrative. That play actually balances out nicely.) I don’t really know Rose Tatoo; shoulda gone to the Tomei revival. |
|
| reply | |
|
|
|
| Previous: | re: ORPHEUS DESCENDING Today - schauspieler 08:20 pm EDT 07/16/23 |
| Next: | re: ORPHEUS DESCENDING Today - singleticket 08:48 pm EDT 07/16/23 |
| Thread: | |
Time to render: 0.010126 seconds.