In Review

Tennessee’s Rose: blooming and beautiful

By C.S. GILBERT

“Tennessee’s Rose,” the staged reading developed and directed by the omni-talented Rebecca Tomlinson and presented March 15 by the Key West Tennessee Williams Exhibit as part of its annual celebration of the playwright’s March birthday, is a carefully researched and sweetly woven multi-media collage of journalism, literature, music and most of all “The Glass Menagerie.”

The advertisement of a staged reading, I thought, implied that the performance would be of a play, possbly about the closeness of he relationship between the sibrings. I was wrong. This production is a skillful collection of drama, journalism, literature, music, symbol and poetry—in short, an original documentary designed to enlighten, educate, debunk, question and ultimately elevate and honor the sibling relationship between Tennessee Williams and Rose, his older sister and clearly obviously his muse, who was lobotomized, probably on the basis of misdiagnosis, as a very young woman, “effectively erasing her as a person.”

Culture Vulture usually resists descussing a production with anyone before the review is written. A casual comment to the accomplished artist in many media (her charcoal and pastels are truly outstanding) and milinary maven Judi Bradford during the most recent Walk on White turned this whole review on its head.

This performance is indeed a documentary; one wants to invite Mike Marrero and Quincy Perkins into a studio and see how they could create a screenplay for the disparate obits, interviews, short stories and the dominate dramatic scenes from “The Glass Menagerie,” Williams’ first Broadway hit.

Beginning with the end, reading exerps from Rose’s obituary in several perodicals, this production movedc quickly enough into a flowing stream of Williams’ short stories, essays, letters, memoirs, interviews and poetry as well as observations from medical literature then and now. The fairly well-known report that Rose had accused her father of sexually abusing her could neither be proved nor disproved and was thus simply offered as one more detail in the psychopathology of this family.

The show was a beautifully realized presentation – so congratulations to Tomlinson, the sponsoring Tennessee Williams Exhibit, TSKW, the Key West Theater and actors Mark Watson (whose characterization of Tom was rather more intense than usual), Connie Hurst and Susannah Wells and especially Neal Ruchman, in his successful local theatrical debut. Violinist William Weinstein augmented the mood both between scenes and occasionally floating just under the dialogue. Crew support was provided by Mary Piszker, stage manager and Mike Marrero, lights and sound.

Still, I would love to see a screenplay for a pure documentary on the subject. It could be a significant release nationally and internationally.

“Tennessee’s Rose” was videotaped, so one can hope for a public screening down the line. It’s a must-see for Tennessee Williams fans.

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