Civic Theater's 'Summer And Smoke' Gives Audience Evening Of Good Entertainment

Civic Theater’s 'Summer And Smoke’ Gives Audience Evening Of Good Entertainment

THE CAST

Rev. Winemiller ------ G. Davis Sellards

Mrs. Winemiller ------------ Jackie Hall

John Buchanan, jr. ------- Tom Wallace

Alma Winemiller ------- Ruth Livingston

Rosa Gonzales -------- Lucille Talayco

Nellie Ewell ---- Harriet Bennett Hamme

Roger Doremus ---------- Gary Johnson

Dr. John Buchanan, sr. -- Howard Green

Mrs. Bassett ----------- Marjorie Austin

Rosemary ------------- L. G. Boatner

Gonzales ------------- George Splevin

Archie Kramer ---------- Lloyd Newman

By Bruce Lawrason

It’s easy to pass off a play by Tennessee Williams with a Lincoln-like remark such as: "People who like that sort of thing should like this."

Such a comment about a production last night ot Williams’ "Summer and Smoke,” presented by the Ann Arbor Civic Theater, would be short shrift indeed. The production has merit, despite any feelings pro or con that the audience may have for Williams.

Last night’s performance by the Civic Theater players had its poor spots and they showed. It also had much that should be praised. Let’s mingle the good with the bad.

The play itself was an ambitious undertaking for Civic Theater, but, all in all, provided good entertainment. The actors put across most of what Williams is trying to show —the tragedy of two moral systems thrown into the unhealthy closeness of a too-small Southern town.

Teamwork Lacking

The actors themselves lacked teamwork. Individual characterizations were on the whole excellent, but they, with only a few exceptions, lacked the close-knit co-operation that could give amateurs professional quality.

Alma and the young doctor, who try to love each other at different times and never seem able to, carry the main action and development of the play as Williams wrote it. Last night Ruth Livingston, who played Alma, carried more than her share of the load and did it well.

Her complete moral switch from "Victorian” to harlot was so superbly and subtly enacted that at least some of the first-nighters’ comments this reviewer heard indicated that there were a few in the audience who missed the point. But that should be blamed on Williams, not on the actress.

Young Doctor Buchanan has an equally strong role, but Tom Wallace didn't quite fill it. His performance was good, adequate and at times sensitive, but details that mark the experienced amateur were not consistent.

Wallace took strong areas of the stage for lines he threw away. Particularly in his second act scenes, he was in spotlights, but with a weak side or even his back to the audience, thus weakening his lines. At times he almost appeared to upstage Ruth Livingston, but she couldn’t be upstaged. Makeup could have helped him in act one, but it wasn't in evidence.

Out Of Lighting

The two of them had many scenes together and Wallace, if he moved upstage, found himself many times out of the lighting. The doctor's office scenes must have presented him with a difficult problem, however, for the turn-of-the-century furniture was crowded into roughly less than one-third of the stage space.

Withal, Wallace and the rest of the cast overcame a terrific problem in the set. Well designed and lighted, the set nevertheless was three sets in one and the audience could see all three simultaneously. This meant that the actors and the lighting had to carry the eye of the audience continually from one set to another.

Margaret and Howard Fox, who never appeared on the stage at all, deserved at least a curtain call for the lighting. Split-second timing on the part of the lighting direction and light-cue catching had few flaws worth noting. The Foxes are old hands with the Civic Theater and this production shows why.

Supporting roles in the play were well cast and competently handled.

Jackie Hall and G. Davis Sellards, as the mad wife and her preacher husband, both constructed sharply defined characterizations with a minimum of lines. Mrs. Hall especially showed an ability to act without lines. She wrung every bit out of each line as the audience was well aware, but she was acting to the hilt all the. time she was on the stage, and the production was the better for it.

Role Adds Pace

Sellards’ role as the didactic father was not a "bit” by any means, though many “bits” have had more lines. He, too, constructed a tight-knit characterization that complimented Miss Livingston's portrayal. The three were especially good in their family group scenes, adding much to the pacing of the show.

Three other standouts were Lucille Talayco as the Mexican casino girl, who did rather well with a good part; Harriet Bennett Hamme as the wrong-side-of-the-tracks girl who becomes a lady, and the gossippy Mrs. Bassett, played by Marjorie Austin. This latter role was a minor one ih lines but important to set the character of the town. Marjorie Austin carried her share of the dramatic load well.

One scene, difficult to stage well, was particularly well paced—the shooting scene, climax of the action. Ted Heusel, though absent from some crucial rehearsals because of illness, deserves credit for direction, nevertheless. The pacing of the shooting scene would not alone give it to him, but the rest of the play shows a sensitive hand, whether Williams' plays are pleasing or not.

All in all, the production is no disappointment and should be one of the high spots of the season—a difficult play competently directed. It plays tonight and tomorrow night in Lydia Mendelssohn Theater.