Gimme Shelter: Vieux Carré
by David Noble Dandridge
02-27-2008

Written by Tennessee Williams
Presented by Muddy Waters Theatre Company

The one thing you can say about Muddy Waters Theatre and their concept of presenting the works of a single playwright each season is this: they don’t stick to the hits. In their season of Arthur Miller, they presented the problematic and rarely produced “After the Fall” featuring a sublime performance by John Flack that I promise to stop trying to work a reference to in every review I write. In their current season of Tennessee Williams’ plays, they stick with this mantra and are staging “Vieux Carré,” a play so overlooked it doesn’t even merit its own Wikipedia entry, essentially the ultimate digital age snub.

Completed in 1977, thirty years after “A Streetcar Name Desire,” “Vieux Carré” is a semi autobiographical tale of a young man identified in the program “The Writer,” a struggling young playwright from St. Louis who arrives in 1939 New Orleans and takes up residence in a low rent rooming house at 722 Toulouse Street, which was also Williams’ first address in the Crescent City. More of a character study and a mood piece than a plot driven narrative, “Vieux Carré” unfolds episodically as we peer into the lives of the house’s desperate habitants. The most notable characters are Nightingale, an aging, gay painter; Mrs. Wire, an ornery old lady, Jane, a fading socialite, and Tye, a strip club barker that Jane brings home one night.

At first I was frustrated by Sean Savoie’s set and its lack of walls (or even the illusion of walls) to let you know where one person’s room ends and another’s begins. Even the difference between the upper and lower floors of the building is only a vague notion. But as the story unfolded, I realized that the lack of walls was part of the point. The complete lack of privacy was almost a character in the play. Residents enter the rooms of others unannounced. The walls are so thin that they cannot help but eavesdrop on one another and people have a habit of receiving guests while clad only in their underwear. The audience is forced to be voyeurs as many of the actors remain on stage even when not a part of the action. They are plainly visible in the background as they dress, undress and sleep. The characters have no place to hide; not from each other, and not from themselves. The overriding theme of the piece is deception—deception (and self deception) being slowly taken away. Seeing the characters in their lonely moments helps to create a sense of melancholy that director Annamaria Pileggi promotes and sustains quite nicely.

I don’t know if there’s been an amendment to the Missouri Constitution stating that you can’t perform a Tennessee Williams play without Julie Layton, but if there isn’t, there should be. Here, as she did in Stray Dog’s recent “Suddenly Last Summer “ and earlier in HotCity’s “Orpheus Descending,” Layton displays her exceptional gift for speaking Williams’ dialogue. Layton’s Jane and Jared’s Sanz-Agero’s Tye are almost a play unto themselves and create heartbreaking, yet understated drama. Kevin Beyer is also strong as Nightingale, the dandy coming to terms with his age and mortality. Luke Lindberg does about as well as can be expected with The Writer, who is more of a narrator than a self possessed character. His best scenes are opposite Peggy Billo, who brings sadness and sympathy to the otherwise unappealing role of Mrs. Wire.

There’s a reason “Vieux Carré” is overlooked. It is not among Williams’ best plays, and only the exquisite poetry of his dialogue keeps it from being little more than a pastiche of his greater work, “Streetcar” and “The Glass Menagerie.” It is not the kind of play where you lean forward in your seat to see what happens next. But if you’re a Williams fan (and I am), you can lean back and let the characters and their stories leisurely wash right over you.

“Vieux Carré” continues through March 1. For more information: www.muddywaterstheatre.com.

You can e-mail David Noble Dandridge at radicalwraith-theatre@yahoo.com.

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