Playwright: Tennessee Williams , At: Shattered Globe theatre at the Victory Gardens Greenhouse, 2257 N. Lincoln, Phone: 773-871-3000; $27-$35, Runs through: Oct. 27
Enter the pocket-sized space where Shattered Globe Theatre Company's extraordinary production of Suddenly Last Summer is running and you are abruptly, wholly immersed in a garden of almost obscene succulence. Flowers erupt in gashes of blood red while thick vines wind in suffocating strangleholds over trellises. The atmosphere is oppressive and quietly menacing: This is not the South of delicately blooming magnolias, pleasant Gulf Stream breezes or gently trilling larks. It is instead a land of predatory Venus flytraps; screaming, starving gulls; and a cloying humidity so oppressive it makes you feel as if you've been buried alive.
Directed by Kevin Hagan ( who also designed the marvelous set ) , Suddenly Last Summer oozes with gorgeous, carnivorous sensuality as Williams rips the lid from a boiling mass of taboos and airs them in the deadly, uncompromising heat of the Deep South. The catharsis that results is one of shock, sorrow and relief. In real life, nobody gets eaten alive for his or her indiscretions. Not so in the boiling world of Suddenly Last Summer, where the hunter becomes the hunted and a discordant percussive march signals the apocalyptic end of a life spent dodging the demons of an unquiet mind.
Fumbled, Suddenly Last Summer would turn into a steaming heap of putrid ham. Here, there are cannibals, incest, drug addicts, tortured poets, nubile young women condemned to lunatic asylums and filthy-rich widows intent on inflicting unnecessary lobotomies—a veritable hit parade of Gothic tragedies. But although Williams' themes are often sensational, his writing is never sensationalistic or pandering. Every lurid element of Suddenly Last Summer rings true and hits hard—sometimes literally, sometimes metaphorically and always viscerally. This is one of Williams' more autobiographical plays and even when the plot turns downright torrid, Suddenly Last Summer resonates with emotional truth.
At the bruised, broken heart of the drama is Catherine ( Allison Batty ) , a young woman confined to a mental hospital following the death of her cousin, Sebastian. Batty's fever-eyed Catherine is simply extraordinary. Deep into the story, she recounts how Sebastian died. The recollection comes in a monstrous symphony of a monologue, and Batty nails it with ferocious emotional intensity and devastating impact. Watching the scene is akin to being caught up in a tidal wave—the power is all-consuming. All you can do is submit.
Batty's got the show-stopping role, but the rest of the cast matches her in intensity and excellence. Linda Reiter embodies the grotesque maternal as Sebastian's iron-clawed mother while Brian McCaskill exudes subtle chivalry as a doctor with both a strong sense of ethics and a barbaric specialty.