Theatre
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mum - sweet Bird of Youth, Dundee Rep, Wed 25 Oct-Sat 11 NOV.
Surely Tennessee wasn’t his real name? No, he was born Thomas Lamier Williams. His pen name wason‘ginally a nickname accorded him by his college friends. who gently mocked him for his Southern Gentleman's accent. He was actually born in nearby Mississippi.
What were his Influences? Early, on’in life, he read a good deal of DH Lawrence, whose subject matter. particularly the exploration of Sexual repression, seemed to appeal to Williams. His influence can be vaguely detected throughout Williams’ plays.
And she was the model for Blanche Dubols In A Streetcar Named Desire? well," some say she was. though more recent queer theory readings
have inferred that Blanche was a cipher for Williams himself. A gender change. and there are many parallels between Blanche and an isolated and stigmatised
homosexual. Long after its composition, in 1979, Williams was the victim of a gay bashing by a group of youths.
And what of the Dundee Rep production of Sweet Bird of Youth? This 1959 play was Williams second most commercially successful after Cat On a Hot Tin Roof. it speaks of a man who has returned to the town of his younger years in order to make a last attempt to woo his childhood sweetheart. Now. given that the last time around, he'd given her a dose of clap. things don't look promising. And it all ends pretw violently at the hands of the lady in question’s father.
How vlolently? Better not tell, but nearly as violently as the end of the absent hero in Sudden/y Last Summer, who’s actually cannibalised by a group of hungry South American children. Still, Williams himself came to a peculiarly gothic end. choking on a bottle top at the end of a characteristically long drinking bout in 1983. What would you expect from a man whose father's middle name was Coffin? Really! Melodrameflc, and pretty gothic then? Yes. There’s melodrama and a rather despairing version of torch song atmosphere in Williams, making him a taste not everyone acquires Joe Orton complained of ‘Tennessee Williams fag and drag’. (Steve Cramer)
82 THE LIST 19 Oct ’2 Nov
WEST END TOUR THE HISTORY BOYS King’s Theatre, Edinburgh, until Sat
21 Oct
There might be a couple of points of added interest to this reappearance of Alan Bennett's 2004 classic on Scottish stages. The first of these has to be the recent release of the motion picture version of the play. directed here. as at the English National. by Nicholas Hytner. The difference between the theatre version and the film illustrate much of what can go wrong with big money being thrown at successful theatre pieces. for in the process. there is a certain blanding. if not dumbing down. of the ideological edges that made the play so powerful.
For Bennett's play is ab0ut nothing less than history itself. in a society largely in denial about the importance of the subject. The play. for those unfamiliar with it. tells the story of several high school graduates of the early 1980s who are sitting their Oxbridge entrance exams. They are taught by an older teacher in love with the joys of learning for its own sake. but mildly inclined to groping the boys on the odd occasion. and a coldly pragmatic. repressed yOung gay. who sees histOry as a game to be played rather than something of value in itself.
Underneath all this is an examination of the period of its setting. as the coldly utilitarian greed of the Thatcher era began to overwhelm the more egalitarian influences of a welfare state put in place by Atlee. By also shifting some of the action to the present day in the form mainly of epilogue and prologue. the profound political changes of the period, which also effect personal decisions made by the characters. is given an emphasis in the theatre version lacking in the film. (Steve Cramer)
CLASSIC MOTHER COURAGE
Brunton Theatre, Musselburgh, Fri 27-Sat 28 Oct, then touring
Ask any critic. or for that matter. any regular theatregoer for their top ten pieces of political theatre. and surely all would put Brecht's classic of war. gender and class up there. The reasons? Perhaps they're far too complex and extensive to state here. but we could start with the way in which our expectations of drama are constantly confronted by the piece. .Just as the play moves toward soft melodrama and sympathy for its title character. Brecht pours cold water over the matter. and we zoom out to the bigger issues that oppress her. and away from the drama Surrounding her children. who are lost one by one in a time of war. Seduced by myths of entrepeneurship. she is as much a perpetrator of grotesque capitalism and its cruelties as a victim.
liere presented by Peter Clerke's experienced team at Benchtours. this piece follows their Caucasian Chalk Circle of a few years back. which was a pretty well-received production. An experienced cast and a classic story might well make this a thought-provoking. and still very relevant night out. (Steve Cramer)
CONTEMPORARY DANCE RAMBERT Edinburgh Festival Theatre, Wed 25—Sat 27 Oct
There aren’t many octogenarians who can do the splits, leap high in the air or charge around at speed for thirty minutes flat. But then Rambert isn’t your average 80-year-old. The London-based dance company started life in 1926, when Marie Rambert brought together a group of performers to stage Sir Frederick Ashton’s A Tragedy of Fashion. Today, it is the largest modern dance company in Britain, committed to touring extensively and encouraging new works. It’s also home to some of the finest dancers in the world, and Rambert’s 80th anniversary programme will certainly put that to the test.
Bloom is a joyful new work by Aletta Collins, set to lively gypsy music. Bubbling over with romance, the piece has been going down a storm with audiences during the early part of Rambert’s UK tour, especially with those new to dance. Merce Cunningham’s beautiful but technically challenging Pond Way is the meat in the sandwich. Set to music by Brian Eno, the set comes courtesy of American pop artist, Roy Lichtenstein.
Mark Baldwin’s physics-inspired Constant Speed makes a welcome return, closing the evening with fast-paced dodging and weaving. A sure sign that the old folk’s home will have to wait a little longer for Rambert’s arrival. (Kelly Apter)