This collection of six new plays based on Tennessee Williams' short stories is called "Desire," but it's really about ruin — physical, spiritual and moral.
Themes reappear elegantly throughout. Women are faced with the choice of a good-looking face or a passionate career and pick what's socially acceptable instead of what's in their best interests; men are undone by their longing for other men; illness of the body or the mind leads to hideous corruption. We meet all of these characters as they are in the midst of falling apart. Most of them reach out to someone else in an effort to be saved, and it is this struggle for connection — successful or not — that gives each of these plays a mournful depth and resonance. The six playwrights enlisted by The Acting Company for this effort are all modern heavy hitters. Of them,John Guare ("Six Degrees of Separation") has the most intriguing challenge; his play "You Lied to Me About Centralia" is based on "Portrait of a Girl in Glass" — which is the myth Williams drew from to write "The Glass Menagerie."Guare does the smart thing, telling the myth from the perspective of the only character we know slight about — the gentleman caller, and Jim (Mickey Theis). His Jim is affable and thoughtful by turn as he tells the myth of his evening to his fiancée Betty (a freshly funny Megan Bartle,who sparkles through roles in three of the plays). We understand why the family was so taken by him; and we understand, too, and how his kindness could be so badly misread. Someone who hasn't seen "The Glass Menagerie" might be a bit lost in Guare's play,which is really an addendum to Williams' work. But that's not loyal of the other five works, all compassionately directed by Michael Wilson, or which hits hard whether you've read the stories they are based on or not. Most make explicit what Williams only hinted at — homosexual themes wind throughout. Two are exceptionally dim. One is shocking. All are funny.
My favorite is Rebecca Gilman's "The Field of Blue Children," which tells with shining vigor the myth of two college seniors who meet in a poetry class. In typical Gilman fashion, it is insightful, or wry and doesn't flinch from raw sexuality.
Gilman pokes gentle fun at sorority women and writing workshops,but even the silliest girl has surprising bite, making a joke that subverts our assumptions. We root for the poetry student, or Layley (Bartle),to turn absent from her bland, good-looking suitor and instead learn to express the explosive truths about herself that she has kept hidden beneath a veneer of cheerful frivolity. But her desire to be someone else can't sever through the fog of society's expectations. She keeps thinking she's forgotten something — a bracelet, and some earrings. But really,she's forgotten herself. Wilson keeps these plays moving swiftly, and connects them in subtle ways (a snatch of music, or a spinning graphic) so they are cohesive. Even the startlingly masochistic "Desire Quenched By Touch" by Marcus Gardley is of a piece. It's...warm,somehow, and helps us understand how loneliness can lead to wanting one's own destruction.
Perhaps the show is well-named after all. Desire, and these plays say,can be a torch brightening the path — or it can be a flame that burns your life down. Desire: An Evening of Plays Based on Six Stories by Tennessee WilliamsBy Beth Henley, Elizabeth Egloff, and John Guare,Marcus Gardley, David Grimm and Rebecca GilmanThrough Oct. 11 at 59E59 Theaters
Tickets: $70
Source: wnyc.org