TENNESSEE’S LESSER KNOWN CATS
La MaMa presents the New York premiere of a short Tennessee Williams play, Now the Cats with Jewelled Claws. That’s the good news, an opportunity to see a “new” work by Williams. Here we get glimpses of Tennessee’s signature wit and forbidden, deviant sexuality. The bad news is that the ingredients don’t live up to their potential.
Famous for his realism, Tennessee often experimented in other forms. In Jewelled Claws, he delves into black comedy as he holds a fun house mirror to what he saw in society. Tennessee Williams biographer Donald Spoto described the play as “gruesome…a tale of madness, depravity and death” set in the anteroom of Hell.
Madge and Bea meet for cocktails. Cocktails are only served with an order of food, so lunch is ordered (but never delivered). In the fifty-minute play we meet the establishment’s creepy manager; a very pregnant, smug waitress; a giant rabbit; and a pair of rent boys (not to mention that there’s song and dance).
Jonathan Warman directs the proceedings with controlled chaos. The women’s scenes are played out to the audience, conveying the isolationism and absurdity of the piece – but, as realized, this inhibits their ability to affect one another. The three men, however, do get to look at one another.
Many of Tennessee’s shorter pieces include musical numbers and bouts of poetry; Jewelled Claws is no exception. With a mix of modern dance and detached-sexuality, Liz Piccoli’s choreography emphasizes the absurdity of these contorted characters. As Tennessee once said, “In memory, everything seems to happen to music.”
As the manager of the seedy café, Everett Quinton channels his Ridiculous Theatrical Company style (with a bit of the Emcee from Cabaret). He twists and turns to elicit humor and horror by squeezing out every bit of grotesqueness he can muster.
Mink Stole, famous for more than a dozen of John Waters’ films, plays it “straight.” She nicely delineates Madge’s café world and musical escapes. Her restraint is compelling and builds tension – what will she do next? Her partner in drink is Bea, played by Regina Bartkoff; the more aggravated of the two, she wrestles her giant bunny and shouts about her husband, “Phillip is impudent with me!” After three beats Madge replies in a slow burn, “I’m not sure that’s a bad thing.” We get another moment of pure Tennessee when Madge berates Bea with “Your moments of truth are always so accidental.”
As the pregnant waitress, Erin Markey is in fine voice and humor. Her entrances and exits are punctuated by music and Martha Graham-like choreography, which is exaggerated by her protruding belly. In complete deadpan, “The plat du jour is remnants of yesterday’s.” The rent boys, in a great bit of casting, are played by Max Steele and Joseph Keckler (the latter with a strong baritone and groovy haircut). These Young Men bring a poignant sense of wasted youth and a strong sense of period, as did the costumes by Karl Ruckdeschel. Hunched Man is played by Charlie Schick as a foreboding man of danger without uttering a word.
Now the Cats with Jewelled Claws premiered in 2003, twenty years after Tennessee’s death, as part of Hartford Stage’s Tennessee Williams Marathon. This New York debut at La MaMa comes after a September run at the Provincetown Tennessee Williams Festival.
With a little of Tennessee’s signature wit, a little absurdity, a little seduction, a little danger, and a little sex, this minor play by a major writer is definitely worth a visit. For theatregoers who are only familiar with Tennessee’s The Glass Menagerie, A Streetcar Named Desire, or Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, this Cat gives you Tennessee at his most experimental.
photos from the Provincetown production by Josh Andrus and Jonathan Collins
Now the Cats with Jewelled Claws
La Mama in New York City
scheduled to end on November 13
for tickets, visit http://lamama.org/
