Sydney Theatre Company presentsSUDDENLY LAST SUMMERBy Tennessee Williams
Desire will consume you
Robyn Nevin makes a very welcome return to the STC stage in Tennessee Williams’ lushly poetic drama. She plays Violet Venable, an aristocratic woman gripping tightly to what remains of her refinement – and her reputation.
Williams’ characters often have a complicated relationship with the past. From Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire to Amanda Wingfield in The Glass Menagerie, memory makes strange bedfellows of nostalgia and regret. In Suddenly Last Summer, the past is a dangerous question mark.
Violet wants to protect her late son’s reputation, no matter the price. Young Catharine Holly wants to tell the truth, even if it finishes her. In the ensuing battle, the play feeds on the dramatic tension between decadence and degeneracy, between pleasure and corruption, between truth and reality.
In a visionary new production, Resident Director Kip Williams (Macbeth) will use live video to zoom in on the characters’ dark depths in this rarely produced but enduring classic.