Full disclosure: I’m a huge fan of the works of Tennessee Williams.
But there’s something so fresh and honest about “Small Craft Warnings,” his work the Washington Shakespeare Company at Clark Street Playhouse is currently staging, it actually overshadows the brilliance of Williams’ better-known works such as “A Streetcar Named Desire” and “Glass Menagerie.”
Perhaps my exuberance is spurred by discovering this relatively obscure play in a wonderfully staged production. The WSC has turned the lobby of the Clark Street Playhouse into a seedy, waterside bar in which the audience sits on folding chairs and small, often dirty tables. The restrooms are not only integrated into the play but have “busy bar” sound effects — clanking glasses, shrill laughter, stomping feet — piped into them during intermission.
By putting the audience complete with refreshments into the actual setting of the play — thus breaking down the barriers between the audience and the characters — even the most cynical must be pulled into the stories told by the down-on-their-luck bar patrons.
John C. Bailey not only plays the role of Monk, the decent yet rugged bar owner, but seems to become the burly bar owner who tries to keep peace and sanity among the bar’s patrons. He tells the story of how his patrons return to him again and again, almost as if he’s their parent. One former patron, Monk tells the audience, willed his meager worldly belongings to him.
Somewhere behind the yelling, violence, bit of nudity and boozy statements the characters have formed an odd, urban family bound by loneliness and despair. Doc (Joe Palka) the drunken physician who ultimately takes two lives, Violet (Mundy Spears) who debases herself for her personal version of love, and of course Leona Dawson (Kari Ginsburg) who rails against those who leave her while her internal demons plead for companionship and understanding, are among the personalities we meet under the brilliant direction of Jay Hardee.
Of course each character that inhabits this Southern California coastal bar is no one and everyone, afraid but courageous, broken but hopeful.
Those that know Williams’ work understand that he was a man of great compassion often putting himself, his struggles, his homosexuality and his quest for acceptance into his characters.
If you’re looking for dramatic action or powerful social statements, move along. There’s nothing for you to see here. But if you want a deep, soul-searching look into the human condition and the struggle to survive, belly on up to the bar.
If you go
‘Small Craft Warnings’
Where: Washington Shakespeare Company/Clark Street Playhouse, 601 S. Clark St., Arlington (Crystal City)
When: 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday, 2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday through May 10
Info: $25 to $35; Saturday matinees are “Pay What You Can”; play includes brief nudity and somewhat heavy cigarette smoke; 800-494-TIXS; www.BoxOfficeTickets.com/WSC
