Shaw Festival
Through October 11
A LOVELY SUNDAY FOR CREVE COEUR Court House Theatre/Shaw Festival
Tennessee Williams based “The Glass Menagerie” on a short story he had written and a movie script he had also written under the name of “The Gentleman Caller.”
He could have used that name for another St. Louis-based play, the one-act “A Lovely Sunday for Creve Coeur.”
The delusional high school teacher Dorothea (Deborah Hay) is waiting for a call, waiting for the high school principal she has had sex with to call her and, apparently, propose marriage.
She’s lower socio-economic class and he’s upper crust, “the country club set” and that’s the group she wants to join.
Dorothea has arranged with a friend to move into an apartment in a much nicer neighborhood, more appropriate to the principal.
The ambitious and mildly disturbed teacher is living in a bad apartment in a rough section of St. Louis with Bodey (Kate Hennig), who sees Dorothea as an ideal wife for her twin brother, Buddy.
That’s why the plan for this Sunday is a visit to a local park for a picnic, Creve Coeur Park, Bodey, Dorothea and Buddy.
Waiting for a call from Principal T. Ralph Ellis, Dottie is behaving like someone who has had way too much caffeine, rushing around the flat, constantly going back to her exercises, bugging Bodey about whether there was a phone call.
Bodey has already ripped out of the morning paper an engagement announcement for Ellis, a marriage with someone from his own social class and hidden it from Dorothea.
That’s when Helena the prospective roommate (Kaylee Harwood) shows up to get a check for her share of the rent and startup costs.
She’s everything Dottie isn’t, well dressed, predatory and entitled.
Helena also doesn’t approve of Bodey and the tenant from upstairs, Miss Gluck (Julain Molnar), who wanders down from her floor, disturbed and confused and with only shaky control of English.
Helena tells Dorothea of the Ellis announcement and she cracks up and makes a choice.
There are no pleasant people here and no sensible people, although there are a couple of strong performances.
Williams wrote this late in his career and paired it with another one-acter.
As staged by Blair Williams, this is a realistic look at troubled people in hard times and that’s not something that Tennessee Williams specialized in.
The director lets the performers come right to the edge of rug-chewing without ever quite going over the line.
The Shaw Festival is using this as its lunchtime show, a weird choice but it works.
Using a wonderful set of a down-at-heel kitchen from Cameron Porteous, there are some strong performances here, especially Hay and Harwood, and including Hennig and Molnar.
The realities of the Shaw are that you have the choice of seeing this show or going to some bibulous lunch before the afternoon show.
Skip the lunch and see “A Lovely Sunday for Creve Coeur.”
A.W.
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