Playwright: Calixto Bieito and Marc Rosich, after Tennessee Williams. At: Goodman Theatre, 170 N. Dearborn St. Tickets: 312-443-3800; www.GoodmanTheatre.org; $29-$79. Runs through: April 8
Camino Real is rarely produced. Its style and structure are notoriously difficult and its cast is large. Inarguably, this expressionist drama is Tennessee Williams's most experimental work. Its 1853 Broadway failure drove him back towards the poetic realism which had brought him success, but from which he always wanted to escape.
This is my fourth time seeing Camino Real, which is a lot even for a theater critic. Catalan director Calixto Bieito and Catalan playwright Marc Rosich have heavily altered the play, but they are no more successful than any of the others at negotiating the many difficulties. They have slashed the original text to ribbons, inserted passages from other Williams's writings (including his memoirs), eliminated characters but added a dying Williams himself as a symbolic chorus and generally radicalized an already radical script.
The net result is that audiences who've never seen Tennessee Williams's Camino Real still will not have seen it after attending this production. But what of that? This effort proves—at least to me—that success with this particular play probably is impossible.
Williams sets Camino Real in a parched Latin American town presided over by an unseen generalissimo and his cruel capo, Gutman. The town is populated by desiccated versions of real and fictional romantic figures, among them Casanova, Lord Byron, Marguerite Gautier and Baron de Charlus. All are lonely and "alone together," but terrified of being alone apart. Sex provides temporary relief but can't fill the emotional void. Dropping into this mix is all-American Kilroy, a symbol of purity soon to be corrupted.
Supported by a crack design team, Bieito and Rosich have created a luridly colored, quasi-industrial wasteland with no sense of place (no walls, windows, doors or buildings). Some visuals are quite striking, as are several Spanish love songs which replace poetic or tender moments in the original text. But melodies aside, Bieito and Rosich reduce Camino Real to a litany of emotional and physical horrors as each romantic is debased, humiliated and brutalized (physically and emotionally).
Admittedly, the roots for this interpretation—even for the graphic violence—are there in the script; but the script also sows seeds of redemption and resurrection which Bieito and Rosich have drummed out of existence.That's a fatal mistake. Williams had an almost Catholic belief in redemption, and it's not true to him to toss out the other shoe.
David Darlow, Matt DeCaro, Andre De Shields, Marilyn Dodds Frank, Barbara E. Robertson, Mark L. Montgomery and Jacqueline Williams are among the wonderful cast. All are stalwart in the service of this singular, ambitious and misguided vision. Bieito's often-controversial work has been called "visionary." Perhaps he should tackle a more familiar play for us to better understand how he thinks.
