Summer and Smoke is a two-part drama, thirteen scenes 1948 by Tennessee Williams, originally titled Chart of Anatomy when Williams began working on it in 1945. The phrase "summer and smoke" may come from Hart Crane's "Emblems of Conduct" poem in the 1926 White House collection. In 1964, Williams revised the drama as The Eccentricities of a Nightingale .
Video Summer and Smoke
Sinopsis
Summer and Smoke is set in Glorious Hill, Mississippi, from "the turn of the century to 1916", and centered on the highly tense, unmarried ministerial daughter of Alma Winemiller, and the almost flowering spiritual/sexual novel between him and the wild and undisciplined young doctor who grew up next door, John Buchanan Jr. He, inevitably, identifies himself with the Gothic cathedral, "achieving something beyond achievement"; his name, as Williams explains during the drama, means "soul" in Spanish; while Buchanan, the doctor and the sensualist, opposed him with a soulless anatomical chart.
However, at the end of the drama, Buchanan and Alma have exchanged places philosophically. He has changed beyond modesty. She threw herself at him, saying, "now I change my mind, or the girl who says 'no', - she is not there anymore, she died last summer - choked smoke because of something burning inside her." But she has changed, he was engaged to settle down with a respectable and younger girl; and, when he tried to convince Alma that what they had among them was a "spiritual bond", he realized, in any case, that it was too late. In the last scene, Alma meets a young traveling salesman at dusk in the city park; and when the curtain fell, he followed her to enjoy the "entertainment after dark" at Moon Lake Casino, where she refused Buchanan's attempts to seduce her the previous summer.
Maps Summer and Smoke
Stage performance
On October 6, 1948, after the opening in Dallas, Summer and Smoke received its first Broadway show at the Music Box Theater in New York City, in a production staged by Margo Jones and designed by Jo Mielziner with Tod Andrews, Margaret Phillips, Monica Boyar and Anne Jackson. The drama was played for 102 performances and, at the time, represented a decrease in popularity for Williams after a successful previous game, A Streetcar Named Desire , though it explored the same theme.
In 1952, Geraldine Page played a leading role in the revival directed by JosÃÆ'Â © Quintero at the newly established Circle at Square Theater in downtown New York (the theater was in the former Sheridan Square Playhouse location). His legendary appearance is credited with the start of the Off-Broadway movement, placing himself and Quintero on the map and defending the game itself. The page starred in an hour's adaptation of the drama on the radio series Best Plays in 1953 across from Richard Kiley (recording that still exists). He also described Alma Winemiller in a 1961 film version opposite Laurence Harvey getting an Academy Award nomination (as did Una Merkel playing his mother). Additional Oscar nominations go to Art Direction and Elmer Bernstein's musical scores are evocative.
The premiere of Broadway's revised version titled The Eccentricities of a Nightingale was staged in 1976. The production was directed by Edwin Sherin, with views by William Ritman, costumes by Theoni V. Aldredge, lighting by Marc B Weiss and music original by Charles Gross. It was produced in conjunction with Marc W. Jacobs. The production stage manager is Henry Banister and the press is by Seymour Krawitz, Patricia McLean Krawitz and Louise Ment. The show starring Betsy Palmer (Alma), Shepperd Strudwick (Rev Winemiller), Grace Carney (Mrs Winemiller), Nan Martin (Mrs Buchanan), Peter Blaxill (Roger Doremus), Jen Jones (Mrs. Bassett), Patricia Guinan ( Rosemary), WP Dremak (Vernon), Thomas Stechschulte (Traveling Salesman) and David Selby as Dr. Buchanan. Production lasted for 24 gigs at the Morosco Theater.
In 1996, the drama was revived at the Criterion Center Stage Right in New York, in a production directed by David Warren, with Harry Hamlin and Mary McDonnell. Laila Robins and Amanda Plummer have been known as Almas in the production of regional theater.
It was almost sixty years before the London premiere of Summer and Smoke. It opened at the Apollo Theater on October 17, 2006. Production, directed by Adrian Noble and starring Rosamund Pike and Chris Carmack, first opened at Nottingham Playhouse in September, prior to its transfer in London. It's closed ten weeks from the planned sixteen-week plan due to disappointing ticket sales.
In January 2007, Paper Mill Playhouse in Millburn, New Jersey, presented a resurrection starring Amanda Plummer and Kevin Anderson, directed by Michael Wilson. In May 2008, the Off-Broadway group The Actors Company Theater (TACT) presented a revival of the 1964 revised drama, The Eccentricities of a Nightingale, which received good notice from The New York Times .
In 2017, Almeida Theater announces a new production starring Patsy Ferran, directed by Rebecca Frecknall and designed by Tom Scutt. This is a run from February 24, 2018 - April 7, 2018.
The drama returns to Off-Broadway Spring 2018. This will be done by the Classic Stage Company from April 13 to May 20, directed by Jack Cummings III.
Adaptations
In 1961, the film adaptation by Paramount Pictures was directed by Peter Glenville, and starring Laurence Harvey, Rita Moreno, and Geraldine Page who repeated her role as Alma. The television version was produced in 1972, starring Lee Remick, David Hedison, and Barry Morse. Other productions, Eccentricities of a Nightingale, starring Blythe Danner and Frank Langella, aired as episodes of the Great Performances PBS program in 1976.
The operative treatment of the game also exists, composed by Lee Hoiby. It was last produced by Manhattan School of Music Opera Theater in December 2010.
References
External links
- Summer and Smoke on the Broadway Internet Database
- 1953 Best playback radio adaptation of games on the Internet Archive
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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