September 2005

Dear Subscriber:

WELCOME TO OUR 39TH SEASON of bringing exciting, thrilling, involving theatre to you and the St. Louis region. I hope you’ve had a great summer. The heat and gas prices have been amazing, but happily, so has our baseball team. We are all so pleased that you are joining us for this adventure of our new season.

WE BEGIN WITH A PLAY that has achieved iconic status both as a Pulitzer Prize-winning play and as a movie that sizzled on the big screen. Tennessee Williams’s Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is a galvanic work about many things—relationships, mortality, mendacity— and maybe ultimately about a kind of indomitable life force. Its balance of elegance and coarseness reveals Williams at the height of his dramatic powers, as he marries lush, poetic speeches and the abrasive dialogue authentic to characters in crisis and punctuates the blend with the occasional surprisingly humorous exchange or anecdote.  No other writer could craft the poetry of the human condition and add the irony of genuine laughs like St. Louis’s own Tennessee. The rhythm of conversation and imagery woven into the scenes lends them a centered reality that is breathtaking.

OUR DIRECTOR FOR THIS production is the legendary Marshall W. Mason, whose previous work here includes Book of Days, Talley’s Folly and Private Lives. The founder of New York’s Circle Repertory Company and a veteran Broadway director, Mason is considered one of the leading directors in our industry, and it is an honor to have him back to work on this show.  This production also marks a milestone of sorts for Mason as he made his directing debut with this magnificent play at Northwestern at the age of nineteen and now returns to it with the fully adult perspective of a seasoned director. The version of the play that we are producing is informed by the work of both Elia Kazan and Michael Kahn, as well as the conversations that Mr. Mason had with Tennessee Williams about the play and his own sense of the story.

WILLIAMS WROTE THIS PIECE during the mid-1950s, a time that clamped a lid of normalcy and quietude over a cauldron of issues that was primed to explode. From race to sexuality to women’s rights—a world of apparent complacency that had settled in after the second World War and the Korean War was about to be up-ended. In the microcosm that Williams establishes in this play set along the Mississippi Delta, one of the major issues is “mendacity”. This lacquer of dishonesty is painted over the lives of all of his characters, as well as the larger society. Williams then centers the dramatic action on the imperative of getting to the truth in all of these individuals, giving the play a fierce modern relevance and some strong language that may surprise those of you who know only the film version of the story.

AT ISSUE, OF COURSE, is why Brick and Maggie, the golden couple, no longer share a bed and consequently have no children. The screenplay—which Williams detested and declared would “set the industry back 50 years”—gave the impression that all of their marital problems stemmed from Maggie’s infidelity with Brick’s best friend, Skipper. However, modifications made necessary by the censorship of the Hays Code obscured a much more complex plot issue from Williams’s original work: the nature of Brick and Skipper’s relationship. While the question of Brick’s sexuality is not particularly shocking in the 21st century, it was too much for the film censors of the ‘50s. But because mendacity is central to this discussion, it begs the question—what is the truth of the matter? Williams responds with one of the most powerful father-son exchanges ever written as Brick and Big Daddy work to uncover the layers of lies that surround them both. As the two alternately ramble, stumble, and charge through what on the surface is idle conversation, Brick reveals the remarkable tenor of his friendship with Skipper. It appears to be one which transcended any kind of physical relations and operated on a higher plane—it was emotionally connected, it was powerful, it was full of heart and soul—but against Skipper’s best hopes, it was platonic. To this end, Williams inserts a direct interpretive comment into the text:

The thing they’re discussing, timidly and painfully on the side of Big Daddy, fiercely, violently on Brick’s side, is the inadmissible thing that Skipper died to disavow between them. The fact that if it existed it had to be disavowed to “keep face” in the world they lived in, may be at the heart of the “mendacity” that Brick drinks to kill his disgust with. It may be the root of his collapse. Or maybe it is only a single manifestation of it, not even the most important. The bird that I hope to catch in the net of this play is not the solution of one man’s psychological problem. I’m trying to catch the true quality of experience in…live human beings in the thundercloud of common crisis…This does not absolve the playwright of his duty to observe and probe as clearly and deeply as he legitimately can: but it should steer him away from “pat” conclusions, facile definitions which make a play just a play, not a snare for the truth of human experience.

THE CONCLUSIONS THAT EVERYONE makes about Brick are the easy ways for people to think—but they never dig deeply enough to really understand the relationship that he and Skipper (or for that matter, Maggie and Skipper) shared. They only look at the surface—and relations are far more complex than what happens at the surface. Brick can’t forgive himself for allowing Skipper to think like he did, and he can’t forgive Maggie, not for violating their marriage, but for intruding on this rare friendship by having an affair with Skipper. They both wanted Brick so badly that they felt that they could have him only through each other in a complex transference of a sense of a third person. But as the introduction that appears with the play’s reprinting in Stages of Drama illustrates, “the problem is not what kind of relationship Brick and Skipper had, but their need, created by ‘the world they live in’ to ‘keep face.’ The more important issue, both for Brick and for Williams, is ‘mendacity.’ Everyone in the play is guilty of mendacity—of lying, betrayal, and manipulation.  And the lies persist only because Big Daddy and Big Mama want to believe them, a condition that suggests the root of public lying is the act of lying to oneself.”

IN SOME WAYS, the play is a scream for understanding and tolerance, but it also becomes clearer each time I encounter it, that it is very much about survivors and what it takes to survive. As Clive Barnes wrote in his review of the American Shakespeare Theater’s 1974 production of the work, “People used to think that Tennessee Williams’s plays were about sex and violence. How wrong they were—they are about love and survival.” Brick has found a way to continue, albeit with the crutch of liquor, and even Big Daddy, is going to squeeze every ounce out of his time left. But Maggie is the true survivor in this play. She stands by her husband, rejecting all of the lies from everyone around her—determined to “stay on this hot tin roof…as long as [she has] to.” Whether this impulse is born out of true love or self-preservation that comes from knowing that Brick is set to inherit “twenty-eight thousand acres of the richest land this side of the valley Nile”—she isn’t ready to give that up. With the inherent life force that rumbles through this amazing text, Williams manages to transform this play from a portrait of a decaying, dysfunctional family to an anthem of survival.

MR. MASON INTERPRETS this same force and momentum as a hallmark of the play’s Greek structure as it follows the Aristotelian unities of time, place and action. Time is continuous in the play; the setting never changes, and the story doesn’t wander. Additionally, the desire for money and land is a source of contention that is seen in drama from the Greeks to modern day. Gooper and Sister Woman Mae show themselves to be so greedy that we come to enjoy their machinations which Big Daddy and Maggie mark with disgust. Another contemporary holdover from the Greeks is the worship of the athletic star, which today easily reaches hysterical levels. Brick’s struggle with this now fading status only further muddies his psychological haze. The noble dignity characteristic of classic works is found in the unlikely candidate of Big Mama, who willfully avoids the truth of Big Daddy’s situation as she works to protect herself from the obvious news. Though her blind (some would even say foolish) devotion would seem to debase her, it somehow lends this otherwise commonplace woman a sense of decorum. Her love for her husband is absolute, and she knows that without her man, she’ll be lost. It is a remarkable story full of memorable characters and ideas and indeed, still feels so current in its themes that it is extraordinary to realize that this year marks the 50th anniversary of the opening of the play on Broadway.

IN THE CAST are new friends Jason Kuykendall, Edwin McDonough, Molly Schaffer and Jo Twiss, joined by Rep veterans Joneal Joplin, John Lepard (Book of Days), Michael McCarty (Tintypes) and Mary Proctor (Private Lives). Scenic design is by Emmy-nominated David Potts, with costumes by David Zyla and lighting from Phil Monat.

BELOW YOU WILL FIND a downloadable flyer from our good friends at the Fox Theatre offering Rep subscribers a chance to purchase tickets for Wicked at the Fox ahead of the public on-sale dates. Wicked is a clever, hugely popular show that is still packing them in on Broadway, and its take on the Wizard of Oz story is unique and wonderfully entertaining. Please see the flyer for additional details.

AS YOU KNOW, we are launching our brand new series, Off-Ramp, this fall. This three-show series plays at the Grandel Theatre in Grand Center and is available for subscription. We’re proud to be able to add this exciting trio of provocative plays to our Mainstage and Studio Theatre offerings as we expand our programming mix for adult audiences.

THE FIRST PLAY is Richard Greenberg’s multi-award-winning work (including the Tony for Best Play), Take Me Out.  It is centered on a baseball team called The Empires (a club many believe to be the Yankees). Their star player, Darren Lemming, is an extraordinary athlete, who fills both his fans and his teammates with awe at his abilities and his presence on and off the field. The play tracks the sometimes humorous, sometimes heartening, and sometimes heated responses of Lemming’s teammates to his matter-of-fact coming out of the closet at a news conference. One of the many joys of this play is the accountant Mason Marzac, whose speeches about baseball, coming from someone who is new to appreciating the game, are moving, magical, and just plain funny. As the play has scenes in the locker room and the showers, there per force is nudity.

BEN BRANTLEY in the New York Times said: “An enchanting and enchanted take on baseball…both passionately personal and lyrically analytical. The play is an unconditional, all-American epiphany that, in these days of fretful ambivalence, is something to cherish… the soliloquy on why baseball is greater than democracy is a rhapsody that no lover of the sport—or of theater—should miss.”  And John Lahr in The New Yorker stated: “Exhilarating…Take Me Out marvelously demonstrates that the spirit can be lost and sometimes found.” USA Today‘s Elysa Gardner said this is “a probing and briskly clever study of the emotional and psychological dynamics at play in human relationships, be they personal, or vocational, romantic or platonic, gay or straight.  Take Me Out is a show worth rooting for.”

ROB RUGGIERO DIRECTS a wonderful cast which includes local actors Jorge Oliver, Jose “J. J.” Perez, and Jake Schneider. Returning to us are Tim Altmeyer (Rev. Hale in The Crucible) and Tony Hoty (Other People’s Money). New friends to us are Shawn T. Andrew, Michael Balsley, Nat DeWolf, Ikuma Isaac, Matt Montelongo, and Philip Anthony-Rodriguez. The show has set design by Adrian W. Jones,  costumes by Michael McDonald,  and lights by John Lasiter.

IT IS FULLY A MOMENT of serendipity that we are opening our Mainstage and Off-Ramp seasons with plays that have sports imagery as part of their stories. These are two powerfully and brilliantly written shows. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof won the Pulitzer Prize 50 years ago and Take Me Out was a runner up for the same honor a year ago. Both plays deal with athletes, finding the truth, survival and power, and each work deftly couples humor with lyricism.

WE ARE SO VERY PLEASED you have joined us this season. Please spread the word about The Rep. Let your friends and co-workers know about our work and remind them that they may still subscribe to the rest of our season.

See you at the theatre.

Steven Woolf
Artistic Director

NEW YORK REPORT:  If you are going to New York before mid-September, be sure to catch The Pillowman. Though it does have material that some may find disturbing, it is a brilliant play and a great production. Doubt made the move to Broadway well and is certainly worth seeing. Spamalot is clever and wonderfully silly. Likewise,  Dirty Rotten Scoundrels with St. Louis’s own Tony winner, Norbert Butz, is lots of fun, and Norbert’s work is astounding. The Light in the Piazza at Lincoln Center is beautiful to see and hear, and the performances are excellent. If you are traveling to London, Billy Elliot the Musical is the real deal—believe everything you’ve heard—it is special. Guys and Dolls starring Ewan McGregor is pretty impressive, and he’s quite good in it. The History Boys is returning to the National and worth seeing as is their production of Henry IV Parts 1 & 2, and if you are in the mood for something of a B-movie on a baroque scale, then do see Jim Broadbent in Theatre of Blood at the National. The History Boys with the original London cast will be on Broadway later in the season, so catch it there if you can’t get to London. And if you’re in Las Vegas—KÀ by Cirque du Soleil at the MGM Grand is, I think, their very best show.

An Exclusive for Rep Subscribers

The most spellbinding event of 2005 is coming to St. Louis, and you can order your tickets now before the public on-sale! Wicked plays at The Fox Theatre November 16–December 4, 2005.

Long before that girl from Kansas arrives in Munchkinland, two girls meet in the land of Oz. One—born with emerald green skin—is smart, fiery and misunderstood. The other is beautiful, ambitious and very popular. How these two grow to become the Wicked Witch of the West and Glinda the Good Witch makes for the most spellbinding new musical in years. When Wicked opened on Broadway, it worked its magic on critics and audiences alike. The show went on to win 15 major awards including a Grammy and three Tony Awards. Today Wicked is “Broadway’s biggest blockbuster,” says the New York Times.

Click here to download a printable ticket order form for this special offer. Order today! Tickets go on sale to the general public on September 18!