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Preview by Paul Nelson
NEVER before performed professionally in Britain, Something
Cloudy, Something Clear, by Tennessee Williams, is set in
Provincetown, Cape Cod in 1940 and is based on real events in
Tennessee Williams' life.
The play re-imagines the events of a pivotal summer in the life
of a playwright, called August, on the brink of Broadway success.
Living in a beach shack with only his phonograph, typewriter
and a bottle of rum for company, August's isolated existence is
suddenly blown apart by the arrival of a young woman, named Clare,
and her ethereally beautiful 'brother', Kip…
A delicately woven tapestry of past and present, vulnerability
and toughness, impetuous action and mature insight, the play seeks
reconciliation between love and art, life and death - the cloudy
and the clear. It explores notions of time, of memory, and of
love in its many forms.
Tennessee Williams' (1911-1983) other plays include A Streetcar
Named Desire, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Orpheus Descending, The Rose
Tattoo, The Night of the Iguana, Suddenly Last Summer and
Not About Nightingales.
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Something Cloudy, Something Clear is directed by Tamara
Harvey, currently Assistant Director at Shakespeare's Globe, whose
future work includes the UK tour of The Graduate, and who
has previously directed at the Bristol Old Vic Basement, in New
York City and in Botswana, and assisted on the National Theatre
production of Life x 3.
It is designed by Soutra Gilmour whose recent work, Through
the Leaves, at the Southwark Playhouse with Simon Callow,
has now transferred to the Duchess Theatre in the West End.
The cast includes Susan Bovell (pictured), whose many credits
include Peak Practice, Testament of Youth, Lytton's Diary,
the RSC, and Hay Fever (Queen's Theatre); Bruce Godfree,
who graduated from Bristol Old Vic in 2002 and played Edgar in
King Lear for the RSC Academy, directed by Declan Donnellan;
James Hillier, whose credits include Lulu (Almeida), The
Homecoming, (Royal Exchange, Manchester), Great Expectations
and All the King's Men (BBC); and Nikki Leigh Scott
- Little Women (Lilian Baylis Theatre).
The play is produced by Nina Alexandersen whose previous work
includes the Infusion Festival in Ghana and Edinburgh and Bangkok's
International Festival of Music and Dance.
Something Cloudy, Something Clear by Tennessee Williams, Directed
by Tamara Harvey, Designed by Soutra Gilmour. WITH: Susan Bovell,
Bruce Godfree, James Hillier, and Nikki Leigh Scott. Produced
by Nina Alexandersen and presented by Bright Angel at the Finborough
Theatre, The Finborough, Finborough Road, London SW10 from May
21 to June 14 at 7.30pm (Sunday matinees at 3.30pm). Tickets 020
7373 3842.
Photo shows Bruce Godfree and Juliet van Kempen
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