A Lovely Sunday for Creve Coeur

A Lovely Sunday for Creve Coeur

La Femme Theatre Productions

Theatre at St. Clements

September 22, 2018

Photo courtesy of
La Femme Theatre Productions

A Lovely Sunday for Creve Coeur, presented by La Femme Theatre Productions, poetically captures Tennessee Williams’ rhythms to draw you into the complexity of the characters.  Director Austin Pendleton orchestrates this stellar cast to gradually reveal their characters yearnings, motivations, and inner fears.  The scenic and lighting design by Harry Feiner magnificently creates a single room living space on the poorer side of St. Louis in 1939.  The overcrowded set dressing brilliantly reflects the characters’ deep need for fulfillment.  The four women in the cast gracefully dive beneath the surface to deliver heartfelt, genuine performances.

Dottie (played by Jean Lichty) is waiting for a very important call, while her roommate, Bodey (played by Kristine Nielson) is frying chicken and preparing deviled eggs for a Sunday picnic at Creve Coeur.  Bodey is obsessed with Dottie getting together with her brother, Buddy.  Dottie has her heart set on another man, the principal at the school where she teaches.  Bodey does not believe he is a good match for Dottie.  When Helena (played by Annette O’Toole) arrives and asks to speak to Dorothea, it takes Bodey a few minutes to realize she is asking for Dottie.  Helena is a teacher at the same school as Dottie.  They have been planning on getting an apartment together in a more affluent neighborhood, and Helena is there to collect the down payment.  Bodey thinks Helena is there to break some disturbing gossip to Dottie, and tries to keep them from speaking privately.  The presence of Miss Gluck (played by Polly McKie), the upstairs neighbor who suffers from depression due to the recent death of her mother, triggers specific reactions from each of the three women.  When Helena finally has a private moment with Dottie, she has to face her greatest fear.   

Kristine Nielsen, Jean Lichty, & Annette O'Toole
Photo courtesy of La Femme Theatre Productions

Tennessee Williams creates three highly complex characters in Dorothea (Dottie), Bodey, and Helena.  Dorothea is the fragile, idealistic, and aging Southern Belle who puts tremendous effort into maintaining her superficial and calm façade.  Jean Lichty reveals Dottie’s true heart in the opening scene with Bodey.  Their friendship is genuine.  Kristine Nielsen portrays Bodey as highly protective of Dottie.  Bodey’s personal need for Dottie to marry her brother is never spoken, but viscerally communicated by Ms. Nielsen.  When Dottie faces her fears in the climax of the play, Ms. Lichty relies on the genuine connection she created in the opening scene to build her character’s courage and fortitude.

Annette O’Toole’s Helena is highbrow and uptight.  Her entrance immediately creates a problem for Bodey.  Ms. O’Toole and Ms. Nielsen explore many levels of this conflict.  They build and vary their tone and physicality.  Even when they find a moment of agreement, they never drop the tension of competition.  After all her aggressive behavior, Ms. O’Toole is still able to elicit empathy when Helena’s deep sense of isolation is uncovered.

Annette O'Toole, Jean Lichty, Kristine Nielsen, & Pollu McKie
Photo courtesy of La Femme Theatre Productions

Miss Gluck represents the lonely end that each of the three women fear.  Polly McKie creates a dark and imposing presence that none of the other actors on stage can avoid.  She is what unites these characters in their struggle to survive.

This lesser produced Tennessee Williams play is a gem of complexity.  As he does in his other works, Williams sets up the fragile, artistic soul of the main character.  In this play, however, he surprises us by revealing the tender and vulnerable side of the characters who push their expectations on her.  Austin Pendleton and this marvelous cast take the audience on a truthful and intimate journey.  A Lovely Sunday for Creve Coeur is playing at the Theatre at St. Clements through October 21.   

Domenick Danza

Hamlet in Bed

Hamlet in Bed

Rattlestick Playwrights Theater

September 14, 2015

Photo courtesy of
Rattlestick Playwrights Theater

In the past few years I have seen a handful of shows at Rattlestick Playwrights Theater.  Their space on 224 Waverly Place in the West Village is small and rustic, yet spacious and well maintained.  The work they do is consistently edgy and well developed.  Hamlet in Bed, a new play by Michael Laurence, surpasses the standard with a robust style and unique voice.  It is funny, haunting, and psychologically complex.

Michael (intensely portrayed by playwright Michael Laurence) is a Hamlet-struck actor.  Raised by adopted parents, he is plagued with inner conflict, mostly due to his abandonment issues.  In his quest for all things Hamlet, he comes across a journal written thirty-nine years ago by an actress who once played Ophelia.  Her writings reveal that she had an affair with the actor who played Hamlet opposite her, got pregnant, and gave up the child for adoption.  Yes, the date of birth written in the journal is the same as Michael’s.  He tracks her down and casts her as Gertrude (Hamlet’s mother) in his own version of Hamlet.  He is in constant indecision, as Hamlet is, as to whether or not to confront her with the truth.

Photo by Tristan Fuge
Courtesy of Rattlestick Playwrights Theater

The script is skillfully structured and prolifically written.  It is mostly monologues delivered by the characters of Michael or his mother, Anna (brilliantly played by Annette O’Toole).  Since these monologues reveal the inner workings of the characters’ minds and the desires that drive them, they stylistically identify as Shakespearean soliloquies.  Director Lisa Peterson connects every word to action and builds the play to a strong high point.  The Hamlet-Gertrude scene, performed near the end of the play, is alive with tension and honesty.  It is driven by the desperate longings of Michael and Anna, channeled through the characters of Hamlet and Gertrude.

Annette O'Tolle in Hamlet in Bed
Photo by Tristan Fuge
Courtesy of Rattlestick Playwrights Theater

I could not take my eyes off Annette O’Toole.  The playwright has given her a rich backstory that she fully embodies with physical quirks and emotional depth.  It combines Ophelia’s madness and Gertrude’s denial.  Ms. O’Toole seamlessly transitions from Anna, a sixty year old cat lady who once played Shakespeare on Broadway, to the character of Gertrude, the noble Queen of Denmark.  Neither character can embrace her son, and the expansiveness of her despair in both roles is clear, sincere, and implicit.

The play opens with an extensive monologue from the character of Michael.  We follow his story for ninety minutes.  It has a powerful ending with the character of Anna alone on stage.  This choice begs the question: Whose story is this, Michael’s or Anna’s?  The answer for me: The script is so well balanced with both characters’ points of view that you truly identify with their indecision, and therefore fully comprehend why Hamlet is such a complex character and brilliant classic.  

Michael Laurence in Hamlet in Bed
Photo by Tristan Fuge
Courtesy of Rattlestick Playwrights Theater

Michael Laurence has written a play that explores classic themes and Oedipal nightmares, and makes them relevant and realistic.   He has a strong and powerful voice.  Submerge yourself in Hamlet in Bed.  It plays at Rattlestick Playwrights Theater through October 25. 

Domenick Danza