Director David Kaplan

Known as the Tennessee Suite, The Traveling Companion and The Chalky White Substance, a pair of plays written by Tennessee Williams in 1980, make their European premiere at The Absolut Gay Theatre Festival Dublin, May 10-15, 2010.  This Provincetown Tennessee Williams Theater Festival production of the Tennessee Suite travels to Dublin after having been performed in New Orleans, Columbus and Provincetown in 2007 and in Sewanee at the University of the South in 2009.

Directed and designed by David Kaplan, The Traveling Companion and The Chalky White Substance feature performers Jeremy Lawrence and Zachary Clause, and lighting design by Megan Tracy.

Actor Jeremy Lawrence

I was fortunate to see the 2007 production of the Tennessee Suite at the Provincetown Tennessee Williams Theater Festival with actor Jeremy Lawrence as Vieux and Mark, and actor Zachary Clause as Beau and Luke. The Traveling Companion takes place in a Manhattan hotel room with an older author, his much younger traveling companion and one bed. No bed trick here, but one wonders if the young man doth protest too much.

The Chalky White Substance follows. Set in the future, this play about survival, trust and betrayal takes place in the midst of a nuclear winter. The stage lighting emulates swirling snowflakes whose movement ebbs and flows with the drama on stage. As in The Traveling Companion, this play features an older man and a younger man.

Both plays were written three years before Williams’ untimely death. Director and Tennessee Williams scholar David Kaplan puts Williams career in 1980 into perspective for us:

“Eight new plays in one year. Two successful revivals. A Broadway failure, but even so, his future, despite visions of apocalyptic doom, was promising.”

More historical detail about these plays and the late style of Tennessee Williams can be found at David Kaplan’s site.

Both plays can be found in The Traveling Companion and Other Plays (New Directions) by Tennessee Williams and is available for purchase here.

The evening tribute to Tennessee Williams besides being filled with noted performers also featured Thomas Keith, the Tennessee Williams editor at New Directions, and two contemporary American playwrights John Guare and John Patrick Shanley.

John Guare, known for his plays Six Degrees of Separation, The House of Blue Leaves, and Landscape of the Body, read an untitled Tennessee Williams’ poem which begins, “As I stood in my room tonight…” In the poem Williams witnesses from his seventeenth floor window the spirit of Hart Crane striding across the Brooklyn Bridge followed by Walt Whitman and Edgar Allen Poe — the “Unholy Trinity.” Williams dances with his muses and is “filled with running warmth.”

Thomas Keith followed with a reading of Tennessee Williams poem, “Life Story.” Keith reads the poem most matter-of-factly about what one does and talks about “After you’ve been to bed together for the first time…” Naturally you talk about yourselves and light a cigarette. Keith continues with the audience entranced by the predictability of the moment, and then Keith delivers the unpredictable but perfectly logical last line of the poem which ignites the room with laughter.

A very animated John Patrick Shanley presented next. Shanley, a playwright, a screenwriter and a movie director, conjured Tennessee Williams from his personal recollections and influence on his work. Shanley reminded us that Tennessee Williams was not perfect in life or in his writings. Shanley was brilliant, and I hope one day soon he shares his presentation in an essay.

One of the highlights of the evening tribute to Tennessee Williams, and there were many, was actress and opera singer Sherry Boone. As she assumed the stage wearing a sleeveless evening gown and a choker of pearls, no one in the audience had any idea what they were in for.

Sherry Boone began reading Tennessee Williams’ poem “Gold Tooth Blues.” Ms. Boone captured the poem’s cadence immediately and then naturally broke into song—a blues song, of course.  Donning the persona of the “gold tooth woman” in Tennessee Williams’ poem, Sherry Boone transported us from a Gothic cathedral in Manhattan to a smokey blues cafe in New Orleans. I was reminded of my friend and Tennessee Williams scholar Kenneth Holditch, who resides in New Orleans, and how much this moment would have meant to him.

Ms. Boone finished singing “Gold Tooth Blues” with her right foot on the stage and her left foot raised behind her in the air. How’s that for body language!

The evening tribute to Tennessee Williams continued with a reading by Charles F. Martin from The Glass Menagerie. Charles F. Martin is the Poet-in-Residence at The Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine. Mr. Martin and a board of electors selected Tennessee Williams to be inducted into the Poets’ Corner this year.

The poet William Jay Smith followed. His presence demonstrated the depth and diversity of the invited guests. William Jay Smith was a college friend of Thomas Lanier Williams.  We know this friend as Tennessee Williams, but to William Jay Smith, he was just Tom. Imagine these two men of letters as college friends, armed only with their youthful passion for poetry and drama and not knowing where those passions would lead them.

William Jay Smith wrote the foreword to Tennessee Williams’  Candles to the Sun which New Directions published.

The tribute to Tennessee Williams at the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine continued with Vanessa Redgrave reading from Not About Nightingales. The play was written by Tennessee Williams in 1938 after he read a newspaper account about the killing of four prison inmates by prison authorities. Not About Nightingales premiered sixty years later in 1998 after Vanessa Redgrave brought the play to the attention of director Trevor Nunn. That same year New Directions released Not About Nightingales with a foreward by Vanessa Redgrave.

As Ms. Redgrave returned to her seat, she was met by an admiring fan with an armful of red roses. The moment captured the love and respect we have for Ms. Redgrave and her work.

Anne Jackson, Eli Wallach and their daughter Katherine Wallach attended the Tennessee Williams’ tribute. Eli and Katherine Wallach took part in the program with a reading of Tennessee Williams’ one-act play, “Mister Paradise.” As they left the stage, Mr. Wallach turned to the audience and said, “That’s my daughter!”  The audience responded with their heart-felt applause.

As the smiling father and daughter returned to their seats, I couldn’t help but be reminded of Mr. Wallach’s performance with Kate Winslet in the romantic comedy, The Holiday, a late night favorite of mine.

Eli Wallach and Anne Jackson wrote the foreword to Tennessee Williams’  Mister Paradise and Other One-Act Plays published by New Directions.

November 8, 2009 (New York, NY), 4pm. It’s official. Tennessee Williams induction into The Poets Corner took place today in upper Manhattan at the Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine during a Choral Evensong service. The Very Reverend Dr. James A. Kowalski, Dean, and The Reverend Canon Thomas Miller, Canon for Liturgy and the Arts conducted the Choral Evensong service. The service wove music drawn on spirituals, jazz, blues and swing which influenced Williams, readings of his poetry, and remarks by Poet-in-Residence Charles Martin and  The Very Reverend Dr. James A. Kowalski, Dean. The Evensong service concluded with a procession to The Poets Corner where Tennessee Williams’ stone had already been placed. The choir sang an anthem, Reverend Kowalski made a prayer of dedication, and we were left to reflect on the life of Tennessee Williams.

The inscription on Williams’ stone reads: “Tennessee Williams, 1911-1983, Time is the longest distance between two places.”

Historic. It’s the only way to describe the Evening of Tribute and Celebration to Tennessee Williams which was part of a week long celebration of Tennessee Williams induction into the Poets’ Corner at The Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine.

The event took place on November 5, 2009 at 7pm in New York City. The Evening of Tribute and Celebration was hosted by The Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine and was presented in association with the Provincetown Tennessee Williams Theater Festival. Participants included Eli Wallach,  Anne Jackson and their daughter Katherine Wallach, Vanessa Redgrave, Marian Seldes, John Guare, Olympia Dukakis, John Patrick Shanley, Gregory Mosher, Sylvia Miles, William Jay Smith, Lenya Rideout, Jeremy Lawrence, Wyatt Prunty, David Kaplan, Thomas Keith, Mitch Douglas, and current Cathedral Poet-in-Residence Charles F. Martin.

Fortunate for me, I was given permission to make a photographic record of the event. The slide show above represents the highlights of the evening. Rolling your mouse over the photographs reveals the name of the participant and the nature of their presentation.