Small Craft Warnings
(New Directions)
Small Craft Warnings is a two-act play by Tennessee Williams, written in late 1971 and early 1972. Williams expanded his two-scene play Confessional (1970), which had been published in his 1970 compilation Dragon Country, into this full-length play that centers on a motley group of people gathered in a seedy coastal bar in Southern California.[1]
Overview
The characters include lusty, needy beautician Leona Dawson, an embittered middle-aged woman who repeatedly plays Jascha Heifetz's recording of Tchaikovsky's Serenade Melancholique on the jukebox; her ne'er-do-well live-in lover Bill McCorkle; Doc, an alcoholic who lost his license to practice medicine but still does; Violet, who risks becoming the target of Leona's wrath when she flirts with Bill; Steve, the middle-aged short order cook who is resigned to his fate slinging hash in a waterfront dive; Monk, the congenial bartender; and two gay men – Quentin, a washed-up screenwriter, and Bobby, a young man bicycling from Iowa to Mexico that Quentin picked up on the road.
An article about a 2015 regional production noted that Williams wrote: " 'It is the responsibility of the writer to put his experience as a being into work that refines it and elevates it' to make an audience feel the truth of that work." That article analyzes the play, stating that "there is no single dramatic arc... Interspersed throughout are "confessional" moments, monologues of observation and revelation from the individual characters."[2]
The play is a "kaleidoscopic ... of monologues... as the action... becomes frozen and muted."[3]
Productions
The play premiered on April 2, 1972, at the Off-Broadway Truck and Warehouse Theatre and later moved to the New Theatre on the upper East Side. Richard Altman directed a cast that included Helena Carroll as Leona and William Hickey as Steve. During the course of the run, Irish actor Patrick Bedford assumed the role of Quentin, James Seymour appeared as Bobby, and Tennessee Williams himself took over the role of Doc. Candy Darling, a trans woman from the Warhol stable of "superstars," played the role of Violet, a bewitching, trampy girl whom most of the male characters desire.[4]
The play was produced in the West End at the Comedy Theatre in 1973, with Elaine Stritch, Peter Jones, George Pravda, Edward Judd, Frances de la Tour, James Berwick, Tony Beckley, Eric Deacon, and J M Bay.[5]
The play was produced Off-Broadway at the Tribeca Playhouse in June to July 19, 1999, directed by Jeff Cohen.[6]
The play was presented Off-Broadway in 2001 by the Jean Cocteau Repertory, directed by Scott Shattuck.[7]
The Off-Broadway Studio Theatre produced the play in February 2011, directed by Austin Pendleton, who also played Quentin.[8]
Critical reception
In his review in The New York Times, Clive Barnes wrote: "This is almost a dramatic essay rather than a play, a temperature reading of a time and a place . . . This is perhaps best regarded as a play in waiting, a pleasurable and rewarding exercise of style . . . This is not a major Tennessee Williams play, but it will certainly do until the next one comes along, and I suspect it may survive better than some of the much touted products of his salad years."[9]
The CurtainUp reviewer of an Off-Broadway 2011 production wrote: "Even in a better production, the episodes and characters of this play often come across as either too calculated or overly sentimental. Indeed the characters seem to be mere tokens of those found in the playwright's earlier (and better) dramas."[10]
References
- ^ Williams, Tennessee. Plays 1957–1980. Mel Gussow and Kenneth Holditch, eds. New York: Library of America, 2000, p. 987. ISBN 1-883011-87-6
- ^ Mahne, Theodore P. " 'Small Craft Warnings' captures vitality of Tennessee Williams' characters" nola.com, December 14, 2015
- ^ Small Craft Warnings samuelfrench.com, retrieved March 1, 2017
- ^ Williams, Tennessee. Small Craft Warnings Memoirs, New Directions Publishing, 2006, ISBN 0811220826, pp.26, 47
- ^ "Plays: 1973 phyllis.demon.co.uk, retrieved March 1, 2017
- ^ Gutman, Les. "A CurtainUp Review. 'Small Craft Warnings' " CurtainUp, June 29, 1999
- ^ Spears, Ricky. "Review. 'Small Craft Warnings' " theatermania.com, September 6, 2001
- ^ Stasio, Marilyn. "Review". Small Craft Warnings Variety, February 21, 2011
- ^ Barnes, Clive. "Theater: 'Small Craft Warnings' " The New York Times, April 3, 1972
- ^ Donovan, Dierdre. "A CurtainUp Review. 'Small Craft Warnings' " CurtainUp.com, February 16, 2011
External links
- v
- t
- e
- Candles to the Sun (1936)
- Spring Storm (1937)
- Fugitive Kind (1937)
- Not About Nightingales (1938)
- Battle of Angels (1940)
- Auto-da-Fé (1941)
- The Glass Menagerie (1944)
- You Touched Me (1945)
- Stairs to the Roof (1947)
- A Streetcar Named Desire (1947)
- Summer and Smoke (1948)
- The Rose Tattoo (1951)
- Camino Real (1953)
- Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955)
- Orpheus Descending (1957)
- Suddenly Last Summer (1958)
- Sweet Bird of Youth (1959)
- Period of Adjustment (1960)
- The Night of the Iguana (1961)
- The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore (1963)
- The Seven Descents of Myrtle (1968)
- In the Bar of a Tokyo Hotel (1969)
- Will Mr. Merriweather Return from Memphis? (1969)
- Out Cry (1971)
- Small Craft Warnings (1972)
- The Two-Character Play (1973)
- The Red Devil Battery Sign (1975)
- This Is (An Entertainment) (1976)
- Vieux Carré (1977)
- A Lovely Sunday for Creve Coeur (1979)
- Clothes for a Summer Hotel (1980)
- The Notebook of Trigorin (1981)
- Something Cloudy, Something Clear (1981)
- A House Not Meant to Stand (1982)
- In Masks Outrageous and Austere (1983)
- The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone (1950)
- Moise and the World of Reason (1975)
collections
- Hard Candy: A Book of Stories (1954)
- Three Players of a Summer Game and Other Stories (1960)
- The Knightly Quest: a Novella and Four Short Stories (1966)
- One Arm and Other Stories (1967)
- Eight Mortal Ladies Possessed: a Book of Stories (1974)
- The Glass Menagerie (1950)
- A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)
- The Rose Tattoo (1955)
- Baby Doll (1956)
- Suddenly, Last Summer (1959)
- The Fugitive Kind (1959)
- Ten Blocks on the Camino Real (1966)
- Boom! (1968)
- The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond (1957, filmed 2008)
- "The Catastrophe of Success" (1947)
- "A Streetcar Named Success" (1947)
- In the Winter of Cities (1956)
- Androgyne, Mon Amour (1977)