Suddenly Last Summer

I question whether Tennessee Williams is always best served by southern American accents. Apart from the cast’s habit of losing the drawl, it detracts from the urgency of the language, covering the passion and degradation with a faded glamour and distancing the audience from the recognisable emotions.

This is most true in Like The Rain – these three short pieces are shot through with serious intent and messages about delusion, sin, failure and dreaming. Yet by locating them so firmly in time and space (the middle of the twentieth century and the American South), some universal resonance is lost. Of course, the cadences of Williams’ language and the references are specific to the South. However, no-one seems afraid to do Shakespeare in Scots.

Suddenly Last Summer is the most famous play being staged in the Tennessee Williams Festival, and it has his distinctive heated exoticism. It has repressed sexuality, it has a mad woman; it has the battle between authority and truth; it refers to the pain of the writer’s existence and, uncharacteristically, meditates on the nature of God. It’s great, even in the rather perfunctory version at the Tron.

The actors struggle with the accents, rarely giving sufficient weight to their monologues. The action is reduced to a series of tableaux. Andy Arnold seems to be playing with the staginess and formality of the work, with a set that is almost pantomime simple. Speeches are delivered to the audience rather than to other characters. The production is shorn of naturalism.

Unfortunately, the cast can’t quite cope. Like The Rain features the same cast and is more satisfying, relying on Williams’ steamy dialogue. This is a worthy pair of productions, serving classic Williams in an acceptable format: a little safe, perhaps, though, and relying too heavily on the obvious rather than charismatic performances.