The world premiere of this play is a centenary gift for its writer, Tennessee Williams, and has received plenty of publicity. But whether it serves Williams's best interests is doubtful, as is often the way in such cases. This is an evening that is less about the play than about the playwright's life; though it might be hugely interesting to theatre historians and even psychiatrists, it pays smaller dividends for the theatre-goer.
Written in 1970, shortly after Williams came out of rehab, and featuring the play-within-a-play format he also used in Out Cry, the story follows a once-famed but now derided playwright, ageing and alcoholic, as he faces up to the final run-through of his latest play. The director is a money-grabbing hack, the stage manager a drama queen and the actors uncomfortable with their roles. But as the rehearsal continues, unexpected truths are revealed.
The play they are staging is set in a tiny New Orleans apartment, where two lovers – the drifting and feckless Tye (Lewis Hayes) and the more together but wired Jane (Shelley Lang) – are reaching what appears to be the end of their relationship; outside, tourists babble in the courtyard. There are hints of Alexandre Dumas's Camille in this story, which was clearly inspired by Williams own relationship in the 1940s with a young gay man who ended their affair but didn't reveal he was dying of a brain tumour.
Williams returned to this subject a decade later in Something Cloudy, Something Clear, for which this appears to be a heterosexual try-out. Neatly acted by a game cast in what is one of London's most exposing spaces, the play has moments of real emotional power, but ultimately feels as inessential as staging Williams's lost shopping list.
