If you have ever spent an afternoon at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and had the opportunity to study some of the sketches done by Michelangelo Buonarroti or Leonardo Da Vinci you will be able to understand the feeling that accompanies seeing a lesser work by a creative genius. The drawings are fascinating, eerily beautiful and perhaps ultimately more revealing than the artist's more famous works - still you are always acutely aware that you are observing sketches and not the Mona Lisa or The David.
This is the feeling that comes with The White Horse Theatre Company's revival of Tennessee Williams' "Clothes for a Summer Hotel." The play premiered in New York at the Court Theatre in 1980, starring Geraldine Page as Zelda Fitzgerald, and was Mr. Williams' final Broadway production. It ran for fifteen performances.
The plot deals with the tumultuous lives and tragic deaths of F. Scott Fitzgerald and his wife Zelda. Scott, the American novelist most famous for his book "The Great Gatsby," begins the play waiting at the gates of the sanitarium where his wife Zelda is being treated for schizophrenia. Upon her arrival, the play takes a trip back through time to explore the highs and lows of their ill-fated relationship. Mr. Williams refers to the piece as a "ghost plays" because the action in the show is set in motion by an imaginary final meeting between Scott and Zelda.
As a museum piece, "Clothes for a Summer Hotel," is endlessly interesting. While it may lack the dramatic clout of Mr. Williams' "Streetcar," "Cat," or "Menagerie" it still is a very enthralling piece. A large majority of the writing is quintessential Williams', with it's dripping imagery and supple language, while in the more abstract and nonlinear sections of the text it is exciting to watch the playwright break out of his comfort zone and explore new styles and forms. Perhaps the most shocking part of this play is how much of Mr. Williams' own life story spills onto the stage. His sister Rose was plagued by mental illness for the greater portion of her life and spent years confined to a sanitarium; while Tennessee struggled in the world of celebrity with both his homosexuality and turbulent relationship with fame and success. In this play, the characters of Zelda and Scott become vessels for Mr. Williams to explore these inner demons in great depth and surprising honesty. Out of all of his works, known and unknown, this is one of the most raw portrayals of himself and his inner struggles which makes it a must see.
That said, this production has one major flaw and it is in the direction. Cyndy A. Marion, the show's director, seems to have made the choice that, because Mr. Williams refers to the piece as a "ghost play," the production must adapt an overall morbid and morose quality. This slows the entire pace of the production and in no way serves the text. Mr. Williams has delivered a fair amount of humor in the pages of this script, almost all of which is either blown past or buried by the clunky direction and the painfully somber aesthetic. Many of the actors seem to have been coached into overtly melodramatic and/or Vincent-Price-esque delivery of lines. There is one scene in particular in which Christopher Johnson, the actor who portrays Dr. Zeller, turns in a performance that would make Lurch from the Addams family jealous.
This directorial flaw also systematically destroys Peter J. Crosby's performance as F. Scott Fitzgerald. Mr. Crosby appears to be an actor desperately looking for some sort of solid ground to stand on in this zombie-fied world that Ms. Marion has created. He runs the emotional gamut throughout the course of the show, manufacturing and throwing one set of feelings at the audience after another, hoping that something will stick. This makes his performance come across as extreme, exhausting, unbelievable and ultimately unlikable. He only escapes this pattern for a moment in the second act when he has a truly excellent scene with Rod Sweitzer as the delightfully arrogant and affected Ernest Hemingway - both actors are too busy engaging honestly to be bogged down by the restraints of Ms. Marion's gloom-scape.
