Photo credit: Off The Wall Theatre
Cast of Small Craft Warnings
Promoted as a “once in a lifetime theatrical experience,” Off the Wall Theatre’s upcoming production of Tennessee Williams’ 1972 play, Small Craft Warnings, will, no doubt, be precisely that. Rarely staged, this later experimental work by America’s leading playwright of the 20th century (or at least, depending upon whom you ask, among the top three, but certainly the top gay one), presents a curious cast of eight characters, all of whom should be familiar in their commonly human way.
Set in the redoubt of a beat-up bar (think Cheers in Pandemonium rather than Boston), the play’s non-linear structure focuses solely on the characters’ immediate interaction and their attempts at connection. Although there are comedic moments, it’s neither a comedy nor a tragedy. Rather, according to director Dale Gutzman, it’s an “irony.” Reviewing the play’s opening in 1972, New York Times critic Clive Barnes called its tone “seedy honesty,” so expect a certain familiarity. Noteworthy too, is the first staging’s original cast included a transgender actor playing the role of Violet, the flirt.
During a recent rehearsal, I asked Gutzman the obvious question, why stage Small Craft Warnings in the first place? Gutzman replied without hesitation. “Why? Because it’s late and it has some of best writing William’s has done with marvelous monologues. Everybody does the others.” Although the others show Williams at his best, they don’t show him as his most experimental. When he became older, his last 10 plays or so, (that have largely been ignored), are considered the most experimental and avant-garde. That’s where theater is going today. In traditional theater, you had to like the characters. In today’s new plays, you don’t have to like them, but you have to see into them and their souls. Especially interesting are Small Craft Warnings’ characters: all are aspects of Tennessee Williams. Writers naturally put themselves into their characters, but Williams uses all of them in this play to portray his personal demons.
Of those demons, there are two gay guys, an elderly bitter alcoholic screenwriter who can’t like anyone who likes him and his hopeful, much younger pick-up. A third appears as a memory. Jim Strange plays Quentin, the older of the two. “I admit I identify with him,” Strange said, “perhaps more than I should.” His temporary other half, starry eyed Bobby, is portrayed by Jake Russell. “It’s one of the most challenging roles I’ve ever done. It’s a lot of staying out of my head. What keeps him in the bar is how interesting everyone else is. It’s Tennessee Williams before he started writing,” Russell said.
The remaining characters are easily recognized distillations of Williams’ desperately flawed stock characters. Doc (Mike Pacaro) is a Big Daddy while heroine Leona (Marilyn White), who bears the brunt of the action, is, although equally damaged, the brassy antithesis of delicate flower Blanche DuBois.
Gutzman, among Milwaukee’s black box theater directors, has given us decades of exceptional, often quirky, gender-bending or otherwise off-the-beaten-path performances. This rare production shouldn’t disappoint.
Small Craft Warnings runs Feb. 21-March 3 at Off the Wall Theatre, 127 E. Wells St.
