OCTOBER 27, 1995 GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE

EVENINGS OUT

Life in the 1950s, when we were 'unspeakable'

Garden District

by Tennesee Williams Circle in the Square, New York (Also at Reality Theatre)

Reviewed by Barry Daniels

That Tennessee Williams was queer was a kind of public secret in the 1940s and 1950s: everyone knew, but the subject was "unspeakable." After the failure of Orpheus Descending on Broadway in 1957, Williams moved to off-Broadway with Garden District, an evening of two one-act plays that deal more

openly than his pre-

vious stage work with homosexuality. Seeing the recent revival of Garden District, at the Circle in the Square Theatre

that Sebastien was a man who devoured men "like items on a menu."

The Circle in the Square production of Garden District is a lesson in miscasting and directorial ability to deal with it. In Something Unspoken Myra Carter as Cornelia and Pamela Payton-Wright as Grace are physically the opposite of what the dialogue describes. Fragile and frail, Carter hardly evokes the Emperor Tiberius to which she is compared, and PaytonWright is far from the “little person so thin that light shone through her." But Theodore Mann's directing is so sensitive to the textures, rhythms and meanings of the text that it overcomes the momentary conflict between the physical reality of the characters and the one created by the playwright. The production eloquently expresses the love that cannot be spoken.

It gradually becomes clear

that Sebastien was a man who devoured men "like items on a menu."

in New York, I was struck by the kind of silence these plays both confront. It is certainly time to start reevaluating Williams's work in the context of the homophobia he experienced.

(Garden District also opened October 26 at Reality Theatre in Columbus for a fourweek run.)

Both plays are set in the 1930s, in the New Orleans Garden District mansions of two Southern dowagers. Something Unspoken is a half hour curtain-raiser about the imperious Cornelia Scott and her secretarycompanion of the last fifteen years, Grace. It is a lovely piece in which Miss Scott attempts to put into words the affection that clearly exists between the two women. It is a play suffused with unspoken eloquence which portrays the pain of knowing that what needs to be expressed is thought by the world to be "unspeakable." Williams lovingly sketches his characters with the sure hand of a master and lightens the work with his rich sense of humor.

Suddenly Last Summer, the evening's main piece, was a shocking play in its time (the superb film version was condemned by the Catholic Legion of Decency). It is a finely structured and poetically rich work which moves inexorably towards the revelation of the details of the violent death of Sebastian Venable, a poet and sexually voracious queer man. The play is a confrontation between Sebastien's cousin, Catherine Holly, and his mother Violet, who because of a minor stroke, was replaced as his travelling companion on that last summer by Catherine. Violet is prepared to have Catherine declared insane and lobotomized to prevent her from telling the truth about Sebastien. Although the word homosexual is never spoken, it gradually becomes clear

Alas, with Suddenly Last Summer, director Harold Scott displays neither understanding nor respect for Williams's art. The patrician elegance and steely brutality of Violet Venable is nowhere apparent in Elizabeth Ashley's performance. Her Violet is a one-note raging bull, a kind of Maggie the cat grown thick and coarse. Jordan Baker's Catherine Holly has none of the character's sensual fragility: she swoops about the stage emoting rather like a drag queen having a bad day. Williams's taut dramatic structure and violent poetic imagery occasionally shine through this production that very nearly makes a travesty of the play.

Seeing Suddenly Last Summer paired with Something Unspoken made me reflect on the importance of viewing the two plays as part of a whole. Sebastien is the dark version of Williams's own sexuality, a predator who chooses art over life. The inarticulate loving relationship portrayed in Cornelia and Grace is much like what we know his longterm relationship with Frank Merlo to have been. The conflict between these two versions of his homosexuality is a central theme in Williams's work. It is rarely more clearly expressed than in Garden District.

Garden District runs Thursday to Saturday at 8 pm through November 18 at Reality Theatre, 736 North Pearl St., Columbus. Tickets are $14 or less; call 614-294-7541 for information.

The production reviewed here continues at the Circle in the Square Theatre in New York through November 5; tickets are $50 and can be reserved by calling 212-239-6200.

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The Ohio Human Rights

Bar Association

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(The State-Wide Gay/Lesbian Bar Association) 1487 W. Fifth Avenue Columbus, Ohio 43212 (614) 265-7530

1995 Judicial Evaluations

The Ohio Human Rights Bar Association (“OHRBA”), a state-wide bar association dedicated to encouraging the effective practice of law and the professional expertise of lawyers addressing legal issues which may impact the gay and lesbian community in Ohio, promoting sensitivity to those issues, and working with other bar associations to promote the achievement of equal rights under the law for all people, has conducted an evaluation of candidates seeking election to Municipal Courts in Cleveland, Columbus (Franklin County), Toledo and Cincinnati (Hamilton County). Candidates were evaluated based upon their experience, intégrity, temperament, professional competence, and their responses to issues raised in a Questionnaire, which sought their views on matters affecting the gay and lesbian community. Based upon those criteria, OHRBA makes the following recommendations.

CANDIDATES NOT LISTED FAILED TO RESPOND

Cleveland Municipal Court

Edward F. Katalinas Mary Eileen Kilbane..... Robert J. Triozzi Barbara J. Danforth Karen Maureen Morell Angela R. Stokes

Kathleen Ann Keough Bobette Smiley Ousley

Highly Recommended

Recommended Highly Recommended

Recommended Recommended

Not Recommended Highly Recommended Recommended

Cleveland Municipal Housing Court

Raymond L. Pianka

Highly Recommended

Franklin County Municipal Court

Scott VanDerKarr Shirley Ann Cochran James E. Green John Hykes

Amy J. Berling Arlene Singer

Highly Recommended

Recommended

(Did Not Provide Adequate Information)

Toledo Municipal Court

Recommended Recommended

Hamilton County Municipal Court

Leslie Isaiah Gaines Nadine Allen Alvertis Bishop, Jr. Cheryl Grant Dennis Helmick

Jack Rosen

Albert Mestmaker

Recommended

Not Recommended

Take this list with you to the voting booth on November 7th!!

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