On Saturday evening at 8, the Pacific Resident Theatre in Venice, celebrating its 30th season, will host opening night of The Eccentricities of a Nightingale by Tennessee Williams.
The Williams classic runs through Aug, 14.
Stagings will be at 8 Thursdays through Saturdays, with 3 o’clock Sunday matinees at the theatre, 703 Venice Blvd.
Dana Jackson directs a cast that includes Ginna Carter, Brad Greenquist, and Mary Jo Deschanel.
The story:
Poetry of the heart ignites powerful desires that can no longer be ignored by Alma. The preacher’s daughter boldly seizes on a chance to follow her heart’s inclinations when John Buchanan returns from medical school to live in their small town where, too often, dreams die quickly.
Mr. Williams’s subtly seductive play centers on the passionately complex and sometimes cruel relationships to which love becomes vulnerable, when we are strong enough to allow it.
Mr. Williams declared himself closest to Alma Winemiller, a minister’s daughter in the Mississippi Delta, in love since childhood with Buchanan, the doctor’s son who lives next door.
In a 1973 Playboy interview, he said: “Alma…is my favorite – because I came out so late and so did Alma. And she had the greatest struggle, you know?”
Written in 1951, “The Eccentricities of a Nightingale” was Mr. Williams’s revision of the more familiar “Summer and Smoke.” He preferred “Eccentricities,” he wrote in an author’s note. “It is less conventional and melodramatic.”
What makes Alma affecting is her courage and refusal to be a victim. In Summer and Smoke, John’s actions carry out Mr. Williams’s conviction that lovemaking is a way to achieve spiritual wholeness. In Eccentricities that action is Alma’s –
Pacific Resident Theatre is recognized as one of the top regional theaters on the West Coast. It seeks to entertain, inform and educate Southern California’s multicultural community.
Tickets are $25 to $34. They may be purchased online at http://www.pacificresidenttheatre.com or by calling 310.822.8392.
Ms. Borne may be contacted at judith@borneidentities.com