Sunday, April 13, 2008

Saturday night -- Three recently discovered one-acts make up "The Lost Plays of Tennessee Williams" at the Davidson/Valentini Theater.

Williams once described the one-acts he wrote as "the little glass slipper lost in my midnight scramble down the stairs."

These three -- two of which are set in the New Orleans French Quarter -- are breathtaking and are given sterling productions here.

All three deal, one way or another, with the melancholy topic of aging. But they all prove that art, at least when it is discovered, is timeless.

William's writing is so easy to the ear. And I loved it when his Southern Belle character declared "I don't believe in dullness."

No dull moment in the presentation of these three one-acts -- even as they switch the sets from a decrepit French Quarter apartment of an old poet awaiting death in 1942, to a dressing room where two boxers (one young and one old) are preparing for their matches to, finally, Mr. Delaney's over-the-top finely decorated French Quarter apartment in the late 1950 at the beginning of Mardi Gras weekend.

No comments: