Now the season concludes with a festival devoted to Williams’s one-acts, most of them rarely performed, presented by a group of young independent theatre artists, many of them just establishing themselves in the Toronto theatre world.
To be precise about the math, nine theatre troupes are presenting 11 Williams plays at seven venues all over town. The shows rotate to a different venue every day, so potentially you could return to one venue and see all the productions.
It’s an enterprising festival, especially at such a busy time in Toronto theatre, but co-producer Alex Johnson (working with Daiva Zalnieriunis) sees the festival’s energy feeding the local scene.
“Daiva and I collaborated on a production of Twelfth Night at the Cameron House and were looking around for another project to do together,” recalls Johnson. “We decided to reach out to other artists and expand our own resources by expanding the number of companies involved; in addition, we hoped to pull in new audiences for indie theatre.
“We ended up with a giant co-pro that will travel to different Toronto communities, often where indie theatre doesn’t usually perform.”
The pair invited theatre artists they knew to Zalnieriunis’s and served a southern meal.
“Within 30 seconds, we all threw ourselves into the most exciting arts conversation I’ve ever had.”
The format of focusing on one writer came before the choice of playwright. With suggestions by the producers, the companies chose their own scripts.
“We decided that Williams fits well given the number of companies we’re involving and the different styles in which they work. No one is boxed into an aesthetic with which they’re uncomfortable. His one-act plays, which number over 70, include a tapestry of colours and methods of presentation; you’ll find dialogue-based works, poetry, 50s-style experimentation and more. The works we’re presenting include some unfamiliar gems along with other better-known scripts.
“I’ve never read another 20th-century playwright who is so incredible on a small scale, whose many short works are so excellently detailed and crafted. He’s fucking funny, even when his characters are keening at the height of grief; he takes the piss out of the human condition in a wonderful way. Most are autobiographical, and you can watch Williams rehearsing elements of his longer works.
“The plays chosen usually involve small casts and don’t require much in the way of production elements, which is important for The Tennessee Project, since the productions play at a different venue every day.”
Appearing in non-traditional sites in the Annex, Cabbagetown, North York, Leslieville, the Danforth, Roncesvalles and St. Clair West, the festival’s travelling all over, with shows in pizza parlours, community centres, bars, galleries and restaurants.
Afterglow Theatre offers And Tell Sad Stories Of The Deaths of Queens, a 1957 work never produced in the playwright’s lifetime; it’s one of Williams’s rare pieces that deals directly with gay characters.
A few companies offer two short pieces. Birdtown and Swanville stages The Pink Bedroom and I Never Get Dressed Till After Dark On Sundays, the former about the death of a love affair and the latter about the death of a love affair with theatre; each is from a different period of his career. Theatre’s Caravel’s contribution pairs This Property Is Condemned and Talk To Me Like The Rain And Let Me Listen; each looks at what it means to share your life with someone.
Red One Theatre tackles The Big Game, about three men fighting for happiness in a hospital room at the end of the Depression. It had a staged reading in L.A. in 2005, but this is apparently the work’s first complete staging.
Red Light District offers possibly the best-known of the fest’s shows, Suddenly, Last Summer, in which a powerful dowager tries to eradicate the stories and secrets about her deceased poet son. You might remember it as a film with Katherine Hepburn, Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift; the stage version is sparer but just as incisive. There are no performances May 3 and 7.
Other troupes are paired on double bills. Another Theatre Company presents Mister Paradise, in which a naïve young woman tries to give the work of a mysterious poet back to the world. It’s on the same program as 27 Wagons Full Of Cotton, presented by Theatre Brouhaha, in which a suspicious fire in 30s Mississippi causes problems.
The other double bill brings together Written on Water Theatre’s Something Unspoken, about an aging Southern belle spinster and her secretary, and Black Tea Productions’ The Unsatisfactory Supper, in which a young couple become impatient with their elderly, senile house guest.
Johnson admits that as the festival developed, it changed from being about the survival of the indie community to the excitement of building a new group of theatregoers.
“I’ve discovered how novelty and a little spectacle can bring people together. It’s amazing to see a guy who works in a coffee shop who’s never been to the theatre get excited about a show, meet the woman sitting next to him who works at a library and watch them share ideas about what they’ve just seen. It’s so grassroots, so much about the two of them having a conversation that has art at its centre.
“And working together like this, our community of indie theatre artists is sharing and communicating like they never have before. It’s a happy result for everyone.”
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