The luridly poetic language is there, and so are some fine performances. But there’s not much more to Mississippi Mud Productions’ bare-bones revival of Tennessee Williams’ “Suddenly Last Summer,” about the gruesome death of a young gay man. Written in 1957, it’s one of the playwright’s more personal and shocking works.
Directed by and featuring the reliable Austin Pendleton, it’s performed at the Alexander Technique Center for Performance and Development, which is a very fancy title for a raw rehearsal space.
As you may recall from the 1959 film starring Katharine Hepburn, Montgomery Clift and Elizabeth Taylor, the play concerns the efforts of a wealthy Southern widow, Violet Venable (Johanna Leister), to secure the silence of her son’s cousin Catharine (Jen Danby), who accompanied him on an ill-fated trip to Spain. She enlists the services of a psychiatric doctor (Pendleton), promising a generous endowment to his asylum if he’ll lobotomize the unfortunate young woman.
“I can’t guarantee that a lobotomy would stop her babbling,” the doctor tells her.
“That may be,” Violet replies. “But after the operation, who would believe her?”
Instead, he gives Catharine a truth serum that prompts a harrowing monologue in which she vividly describes the details of her cousin’s murder, which involves cannibalism.
Again, it’s shocking stuff, but so is the way this is performed — in an eighth-floor suite of a Midtown office building, where you’ll find the actors sitting on folding chairs. There’s no scenery, no props, no fancy lighting. (That may explain why tickets are just $15, and $10 for students and seniors.)
The results resemble a dress rehearsal — the actors wear costumes, of sorts — for a more fully realized production that you will frustratingly not get a chance to see.
That stark approach doesn’t do the play any favors. Devoid of any Gothic atmosphere, the mechanics of its Greek tragedy-inspired plot creak far too heavily.
You can’t fault the performances. Leister’s imperious Violet, Danby’s traumatized Catharine and Pendleton’s low-key doctor all make vivid impressions. But if you’ve yet to see “Suddenly Last Summer,” this isn’t the production to catch.