by Tennessee Williams
seen at the Duke of York's Theatre on 21 November 2018
Rebecca Frecknall directs Patsy Ferran as Alma and Mathew Needham as John in this West End transfer of the Almeida production seen at their Islington theatre earlier in the year.
This 1948 play is given an impressionistic outing (designer Tom Scutt), which helps enormously with the fluid sequencing of the action, but also underlines the strange extremes of the situation. Rather than attempting to convey a hot Southern summer with a series of realistic sets, the stage is almost completely bare except for seven upright pianos ranged around the semi-circular back wall of the stage (here, a re-creation of the actual back brick wall of the Almeida theatre). Various characters play on the pianos - sometimes all seven are in use, and only Alma never plays one; and occasionally an actor will walk across the tops of the instruments.
