With most writers, certain thematic elements persist and recur frequently, but Tennessee Williams seems to have been the ultimate recycler. Throughout his work, certain themes, settings, and characters appear and reappear, echo and re-echo until it seems as if all his works were parts of a single play, with roots and branches reaching out in all directions. So it is with these two one-acts: The Unsatisfactory Supper and Hello From Bertha.
In The Unsatisfactory Supper, set in the rural South, Archie Lee (Grady Lee Richmond) and his blowsy wife, Baby Doll (Jolene Adams) — who are also featured in 27 Wagons Full of Cotton — are the unwilling hosts to Aunt Rose (Eve Sigall), an ancient poor relation who has been passed around among all her relatives without finding a home anywhere. (Rose, of course, was the name of Williams' sister). Like Blanche DuBois, she takes refuge with a female relation and her crude husband. In Hello From Bertha, aging prostitute Bertha (Kara Pulcino) is broke and dying in a brothel where she was employed. The madam, Goldie (Josie DiVincenzo), just wants to be rid of her, while fellow hooker Lena (Sybil Prince) offers well-meaning but futile assistance. Bertha's only hope is to be rescued by a former lover, for whom she waits — as Blanche DuBois waited forlornly for wealthy Shep Huntleigh.
Director Jack Heller has assembled a solid cast and directs both plays efficiently, but The Unsatisfactory Supper, which depends largely on atmosphere, is not well-served by an inhospitable white-box space. Hello From Bertha fares better with a more detailed, extensive set.
Richmond's Archie Lee is a belching, bellowing bully, while Adams is a languid and buxom Baby Doll, whose bosom seems intent on busting out of her bodice. Sigall's Aunt Rose is touchingly wispy and desperate to appease her hostile relatives. Pulcino makes Bertha's physical frailty and refusal to face her diminishing prospects credible, and DiVincenzo suggests a hint of compassion in the flinty, mercenary Goldie. This is a welcome opportunity to see Williams' early journeyman works, despite a certain déjà vu.
Presented by and at Actors Art Theatre, 6128 Wilshire Blvd. #110, L.A. Wed. & Sat. 8 p.m., Sun. 3 p.m. Aug. 27-Sep. 21. (323) 969-4953. www.plays411.com/longstay.