This is the CS2 debut of James Patrick. We predict you’ll be seeing more from this young man in future issues.

When people talk about Tennessee Williams, some talk about A Streetcar Named Desire or The Glass Menagerie. I am not here to talk about those plays, but rather a play that is capable of standing right next to them. It’s a one act play, fairly short, that was originally presented in a double bill with another one-act play called Something Unspoken; the two were called Garden District. This play was turned into a movie starring Katherine Hepburn and Elizabeth Taylor in the late 1950’s. Since then, the play has taken off on its own and is often billed as one of Williams’ finest dramas, whereas its partner has drifted away to become one of those plays you rarely ever hear about. This play is Suddenly, Last Summer.

When the play begins, we are introduced to a garden a wild mesh of plants that give the whole scene a messy and claustrophobic feel. From the beginning, Williams wants you to feel like you need to get out, that you are desperate to find your way out of this jungle. You look around, and when you think there’s no way out But look there! There’s a ceiling! You don’t find ceilings in jungles! It turns out that Williams has been pulling your leg, that you’re not in the deep jungle at all, yet you cannot help but feel that you are cut off from the world.

Enter Mrs. Venable and the Doctor. Mrs. Venable is a southern belle slowly losing her beauty and health, but who will never lose her grace. The Doctor is a young man, a representation of the Modern Man of Science, who I cannot help but think would chuckle his way through some of Mrs. Venable’s odd dialogue, if anyone else were saying it.

The two sit and they talk about the garden. She tells him that her son, Sebastian, had purposefully planned it to look like a jungle; the garden and his poetry were his life’s work. From the conversation we begin to know several important details that will frame the rest of the play:

1. Sebastian is dead
2. He was a society playboy who was often seen at parties in the company of his wealthy mother.
3. Something odd happened to him before he died, suddenly, last summer.

Williams keeps most of the details from coming out too quickly in the beginning, a problem plaguing most modern plays. He prefers to deal the details out slowly, keeping as many of the cards to himself as he can.

After a short discussion about the doctor’s work at the hospital, we see Catherine and her nurse, a nun, at the window. We quickly find out that Mrs. Venable holds Catherine personally responsible for Sebastian’s death.

From then on, we are given an intense look at a small group of people under the microscope. There are twisted tales of love and anger that could only have been realized by such a playwright. As Newsweek once said of him: “The innocent and the damned, the lonely and the frustrated, the hopeful and the hopeless he brings them into a vivid focus with an earthy, irreverently comic passion.”

I couldn’t have said it any better. Mental breakdowns, physical illness, hate and quick scenes of romance go through all of Williams’ plays, and this one is no exception.

* * *

Tennessee Williams was a brilliant man. He received recognition for genius and style, as well as scandal almost everywhere he went. People talked of him as they talked about any famous person. He was able to craft an amazing web of stories in his writing, a web that still entangles critics and audiences. His true gift seems to have been for family plays. Plays, not made for families, but about families and exposing what lies rotting underneath the new car or showing the “happy newlyweds” for who they really are. It takes a tremendous talent to not only pull this off but also cast aside the masks of society.

Williams died a tragic and memorable death, just like one of his characters, choking on a pill-bottle cap at the age of 71, leaving behind a legacy of plays, short stories, essays, a novel, and a large gap in American Literature.

* * *

Suddenly, Last Summer may not have the widespread appeal that The Glass Menagerie, A Streetcar Named Desire, or Cat on a Hot Tin Roof has, but it is a wonderful play, an easy reading play for a hot afternoon or a rainy evening.

We need plays like this, too. We need a way of being on the outside looking in, and plays are usually the best way of doing it. Plays give you a bare-bones realism that novels and films just don’t have. They show you how people react when you’ve got a group of people stuck (usually) one place together for a long time, when they’re forced to interact with each other. Suddenly, Last Summer gives you a wonderful look into a small group slightly (only slightly) reminiscent of The Glass Menagerie, but pushes you in even further, showing people and events as they are and as they happen, instead of just showing you what is already in the past.

Print This Article