TENNESSEE IN THE SUMMER by Joe Besecker, directed by Christopher Jenkins. New Conservatory Theatre Center (NCTC), (WalkerTheatre), 25 Van Ness Avenue near Market, San Francisco, California94102. 415-861-8972 or www.nctcsf.org.
Now Held Over through March 7, 2009.
ONE OF THE BEST FROM BESECKER
San Francisco is very fortunate to have Joe Besecker as our “tantamount playwright in residence” for the past 25 years. His work has graced the boards in multiple venues, usually receiving praise and always inciting strong feelings from the audience. He has a penchant to write about people of note who just happen to display tortured psyches. This includes Edgar Allen Poe in (in Mary in the Hydrangea Bush), Edward Albee (in Bee-Eye), Sylvia Platt(in the stunning The Way Light Strikes Filled Mason Jar ), Stephen Sondheim (in Crimes and Variations ), and Virginia Woolf ( a first reading The Play Reading Play). In this play, Besecker has created an unrestrained dissection of the demons that haunted Tennessee Williams.
Written in 1984 “Tennessee in the Summer” is “early Besecker” and has had a life away from San Francisco including an extended award-winning run in Los Angeles and a production at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. It is non-linear relying on narrative to bridge the transitions. Two actors (Jeremy Forbing and Annamarie MacLeod) play multiple characters with Dale Albright as Tennessee and Alex Alexander as his female inner voice. Christopher Jenkins is to be admired for his adroit direction of the convoluted time line on the intimate Walker stage. Being familiar with biographic knowledge of Tennessee Williams’ life and work will increase your appreciation of his dark disturbing life.
It is 1972 on a sweltering summer morning in New York City. Tennessee is typing at his desk attempting to re-write a failed play. On an unkempt bed lies a beautiful woman in a white slip berating him for his addiction to booze, drugs and sex. It is not until she goes to the window, beckons a hustler up to the room, and she proceeds to engage him in sex, do we realize she is the female counterpart/psyche of the author. The male/female “duo” then takes us back in time and place as Besecker rounds out the players in this autopsy of one of our major theatrical writers. We meet his sister Rose, mother Edwina and Sicilian lover Frankie Merlo.
The uneven casting does not do service to Besecker’s taut construction. He is a master at creating dialog that defines character exposing complex layers of each persona. Alex Alexander is by far the most polished actor and she seems ready to step into the role of Maggie the Cat or Catherine Holly of Suddenly Last Summer. Her performance overshadows Dale Albright in the lead role who denies the audience the chance to feel real pain for his physical/emotional transgressions and understanding of his horrendous depression over the premature death of Frankie Merlo. Jeremy Forbing as Merlo fails to project the true love professed in his words. He also has the thankless one-dimensional role of brother Dakin.Anna Marie MacLeod is out of her element as Rose/Edwina/nurse.
Running time about 1 hour and 50 minutes with intermission.
