Tennessee Williams, in his final act of life, constructed a play about the dilapidation of the human experience. At the center of his work, A House Not Meant to Stand, is the notion that as a people we have diminished so much we are at the brink of condemnation.
The Fountain Theatre is the only vehicle west of Chicago and north of 1982 to have been entrusted with the production of Mr. Williams’ ultimate play, most likely because of the theater's reputation for excellence, which was proved again recently in the form of five 2010 Ovation Awards, including one for “Best Season.”
This particular piece builds on themes of grief, corruption, denial, sin, disappointment, envy, narcissism and of course the inevitable decay of everything.
At the heart of the story is a family just home from the funeral of their gay son who died at an early age of alcoholism. Of course, the main characters drink fiendishly to suggest that while we all might experience abuse in some form, only some of us actually die from it. Ah, randomness – just one of the many cruelties of life!
In this play, two characters (and only two characters) consistently break the fourth wall: the father, Cornelius McCorkle (Alan Blumenfield), an ectype of Williams’ own father, Cornelius Williams, and a man whose eyes are set firmly on running for public office so that he can denounce the very corruption he espouses; and his youth-obsessed elderly neighbor (Lisa Richards) who runs in the rain wearing a teddy and transparent plastic coat. Clearly, they are the two to break the fourth wall because they are two public personas who are more concerned with how they appear than with how they behave.
What is Williams saying here? Mostly likely that society as a whole has become more concerned with appearance than with meaning, which has helped to steer us all-the-more-steadily toward our collective demise. We will all cave like a house made of playing cards or rotting wood or transgressions of the soil, or, if we are lucky, one arbitrary (but random?) act of malfeasance.
And because all the characters – for example, the not-quite-a-loser son (Dan Billet) and his deliciously crazed fiancé (Virginia Newcomb), don’t break the forth wall, we must infer, then, that flawed people who are sincere are somehow different (better?) than flawed people who are not.
As the house on the stage loses its integrity, with its cracked walls and leaky ceiling, so do many of the characters within – with the greatest exception being that of the mother, Bella, who, as she descends into dementia, remains in many ways the family's sturdy foundation. Bella is brilliantly portrayed by Sandy Martin. Her characterization is so nuanced, idiosyncratic and committed that I can’t imagine anyone else in the role. She is captivating!
Director Simon Levy with his attention to scenic and sensory detail (real water drips onto Center Stage throughout, and sound and visual effects surround the audience) seems to emphasize the omnipresence of nature, which functions as a reminder that ultimately we must all surrender to not only Mother Nature in the form of imminent death (and occasional good and bad luck), but to human nature, which is apparently intent on self-destruction.
While this play is not necessarily Tennessee Williams' best, in my opinion, (key characters fall off the map and never return) it is his last, and for that reason alone (alongside the thrill of Sandy Martin and the other actors) it is worth seeing and seeing again so as to fully grasp what was on Tennessee Williams' own ebbing mind.
A House Not Meant to Stand, starring Sandy Martin, Alan Blumenfield, Lisa Richards, Robert Craighead, Virginia Newcomb and Dan Billet, plays at the Fountain Theatre through April 17, 2011. THIS SHOW HAS BEEN EXTENDED THROUGH MAY 22!
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