![]() ![]() But the bond she forms with Val, as portrayed in this staging, can be as tender as it is tenuous and desperate. Lady, of course, belongs to a sizable line of thwarted and unfulfilled women who fall for such inconvenient men in Williams’s catalog. Williams drafted his “Orpheus” from the seeds of an earlier, more idealistic play, “Battle of Angels.” As the renowned critic and Williams biographer John Lahr, who served as dramaturg for this production, has noted, the character of Val was initially conceived as “a hunted primitive saint, an agent of change, rattling the cage of propriety.” By the time “Orpheus” was completed, this hero had become “a jaded sensualist” and “an embodiment of (Williams’s) moral exhaustion.” A new production, at Brooklyn’s Theatre For a New Audience, finds those roles inherited by stage and screen veteran Maggie Siff and Pico Alexander, who are supported by an excellent ensemble under Erica Schmidt’s unflinching direction. But when he turns his attention to Lady, in hopes of getting a job in her mercantile store, both of their fates are sealed, and not for the better.Īlthough not a success during its initial Broadway run, Williams’s spin on the Greek legend of doomed lovers Orpheus and Eurydice fared somewhat better in a 1989 revival directed by Peter Hall and starring Vanessa Redgrave as Lady and Kevin Anderson as Val. It’s Carol who latches onto Val first, recognizing him from one of her wild nights out. So when a good-looking, guitar-wielding drifter with the promising name of Valentine Xavier wanders into town, it’s not long before feathers are ruffled, and not just among the clattering hens who seem to make up the majority of the female population. It’s a community where men are encouraged to be bigots and bullies, and women who aren’t able to repress their moral and sensual instincts can easily wind up either dissipated, like the self-described exhibitionist and vagrant Carol Cutrere, or disappointed, like Lady Torrance, an Italian immigrant who was married off to an old racist after her bootlegger father was burned alive trying to save his wine garden from the Ku Klux Klan. ![]() For more information visit small Southern town that’s the setting for Tennessee Williams’s 1957 play “Orpheus Descending” is the kind of place where barking dogs can be heard chasing escaped convicts before ripping them to shreds. To purchase tickets to When It’s You, visit or call ( 212) 239-6200. The design team includes Steven Kemp (scenic), Josh Bradford (lighting), Jennifer Paar (costumes), Bart Fasbender (sound), and Justin West (projections).īaron’s plays include Eat Your Heart Out, A Very Common Procedure, Here I Lie, To Know Know Know You, Consumption, and Purge. When she moves back to her hometown, she learns that her first love is at the center of a violent gun crime. The story is centered on Ginnifer, who, at 37, recently lost her mother to illness. When It’s You offers a personal look at the ripple effects surrounding gun violence in contemporary America. Performances take place at The Clurman Theatre at Theatre Row, located at 410 West 42nd Street, New York, and continue through April 8. Obie winner Ana Reeder stars in the Off-Broadway staging from the Keen Company, with direction by artistic director Jonathan Silverstein.īaron’s new solo play was developed in the Keen Company’s Playwrights Lab and marks the theatre company’s first lab-to-stage production. Performances begin February 28 for the world premiere of When It’s You, a new solo play by Courtney Baron that explores the effects of gun violence in America.
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