Review: 'Suddenly Last Summer'

by Hana Teraie - Wood

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The form of a one act play makes its structure and emphasis pliable in the actors’ hands. The room for manoeuvre is particularly acute in Suddenly, Last Summer, which with the help of Williams’ trademark oblique dialogue can swing anywhere between a socio-political polemic and a straight forward ‘whodunit’. Possibly due to a lack of strong direction, this production hangs uneasily between the two and finishes without securing its seat along the spectrum. A wealth of loaded socio-historical comments on the subject lines of rape, racism and homosexuality aren’t explored enough through subtleties in order to develop into questions pointed to by the play. However, the play’s Oedipus complex undertones are brought to the fore through a strong performance of Violet, (played by Henrietta Mitchell) who really is a menace and an exciting character. The misunderstood ‘crazy’ is also delivered convincingly by Fran Isherwood’s portrayal of Catherine, a character that shares many inter-textual similarities with other female protagonists such as Jane from Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper and Esther Greenwood from Plath’s The Bell Jar.

The set worked well in tandem with these narratives; a wash of whites and creams, tropical plants, dainty garden furniture and tea-time crockery rattled in response to Catherine’s frustration with the sticky, claustrophobic atmosphere. The neutral tones worn by the rest of the cast blended them into the narrative of the set to pick out Catherine – in red - as the scarlet woman, and Violet - in black - as the dark, dying and depressed widow. The use of shadows behind a translucent set window was intriguing but, like the complexities of the play, not fully explored. Interesting uses of lighting were employed but lacked enough subtlety to succeed in its full dramatic effect.

This production could have benefitted from a little more time and polish. The American accents were at times grappled with in order to stay fixed; overlapping dialogue was sometimes left suspended between the first speaker and the next; crescendos came in recurring bouts, spreading attention evenly rather than dramatically through the act. The play started with an awkwardly long pause between lights up and the characters’ entrance. But all these trips may fall away by the second and third night, which could leave this production in much more accomplished form.

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