Tennessee Williams’s devastating one-act, Suddenly Last Summer, receives an uneven production by Southern Rep. Set in 1935 in the New Orleans Garden District, the play concerns the wealthy Violet Venable (Brenda Currin, awkward and seemingly clueless) out to get her niece Catherine lobotomized. Catherine’s been in a deranged state since the death of Mrs. Venable’s son Sebastian last year on a Spanish coast beach. She is trying to bribe Dr. Cukrowicz (Jake Wyunne-Wilson, cool) to operate on, and thus silence, Catherine’s ravings about what happened. When she burns her nun-guardian (a deeply concerned Carol Sutton) with a cigarette, the doctor believes her disturbed. He wants, though, to get her away from the house, where Mrs. Venable is not only trying to manipulate him but also Catherine’s mother and brother, whom she blocks from getting money from Sebastian’s will. (Morrey McElroy and David Williams do a tolerable job as the relatives, though they make an uneasy transition from comical spying through a window to a more serious mood.)
Under sedation at last, Catherine recalls how Sebastian took her instead of, as usual, his aging mother on his annual trip for supposed writing of a perfect poem. He used Catherine to attract starving boys on the beach for sexual ends. At the gruesome end of the story, it is not Catherine who exhibits insanity.
A saving grace of the production is Beth Bartley’s beauty and powerful sustained monologue. Director Aimee Hayes assures that she is seen and heard well, not an easy task in subdued light. Hayes should, though, have considered props more closely. Catherine wears contemporary clothes, for example, including up-to-the-minute high heels, and writing is done with a ballpoint pen. Rebecca Rae as Miss Foxhill uses up-to-date assistant’s gear.
Though the play is well written enough to keep audience attention, the production sometime drags, going beyond the announced 94 minutes.
