|
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
Williams' life. It is to receive its British premiere in May.
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.
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. She also assisted on the National Theatre
production of Life x 3.
The designer is 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, left) 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); Nikki Leigh
Scott - Little Women (Lilian Baylis Theatre); and Juliet
van Kampen, who graduated from RADA in 2002 and whose credits
include Medea and Sue in Bash, by Neil LaBute, at the Union
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. Lighting Design
by Emma Chapman. Sound by Richard Lace. Choreography by Sian Williams.
WITH: Susan Bovell, Bruce Godfree, James Hillier, Nikki Leigh
Scott and Juliet van Kampen. Presented by Bright Angel, Produced
by Nina Alexandersen, Associate Producer Theodore C. Rogers. At
the Finborough Theatre, 118 Finborough Road, London SW10 from
Wednesday, May 21 to Saturday, June 14 at 7.30pm (Sun matinee
at 3.30pm). Tickets 020 7373 3842.
|
