12 - Tennessee Williams

Summary

In a makeshift theatre of perhaps fifty seats, on a stage shrouded by swathes of coarse white cloth, a Williams two-hander plays - The Chalky White Substance. To a faint sad sound, lights come up on two monk-like figures in diagonal corners of the small stage. When lights are full up, but before a word is uttered, the upstage figure moves diagonally downstage and places his hands over the eyes of the other actor: “Whoooo?” And the reply: “Youuuuuuu! - You can disguise your voice but not your hands.” By the end of the play those hands grasp the vulnerable figure, not in a lover's embrace but a captor's hold. The love affair of two men cannot outlast the competitive struggle for survival in a chalky white world that is hostile to human habitation, “a century or two after our time.” On stage The Chalky White Substance was so cumulatively harrowing that I was surprised when the performance was over in half an hour. The name of Tennessee Williams had drawn me to the production, where I was transfixed by the spare performances of two unknown but capable actors in an unfamiliar piece.