The last 20 years of Tennessee Williams' career is generally thought to represent the afternoon of an author in precipitous decline. If this opinion is reversed, or even sympathetically reconsidered, it will probably be due to directors like Michael Wilson who come from the New South--in his case, Winston-Salem and Chapel Hill, N.C.--and have developed strong connections with local regional theatres
"Tennessee Williams is the reason I wanted to go into the theatre," Wilson told Back Stage a couple of weeks ago. And Wilson is the main reason that Williams "The Red Devil Battery Sign" is finally receiving its first New York production, opening Nov. 13th at the WPA Theatre.
The story of how this production came about actually involves three people who care crucially about Tennessee Williams: director Wilson, actress Elizabeth Ashley, and WPA producer Kyle Renick. Each in his own way is more interested in exploring Williams' so-called late-period failures than his certified successes. Set in Dallas two days after the Kennedy assassination, "The Red Devil Battery Sign" is certainly the most intriguing of Williams' problematic late plays.
Bedeviled in Boston
It might be worth looking backwards to see how and why "Red Devil" failed when it first opened in Boston in June 1975, to close two weeks later, despite the presence of Claire Bloom and Anthony Quinn in leading roles.
Everyone associated with that '75 Boston tryout who has gone on the record--including Claire Bloom in her just-published memoir "Leaving a Doll's House"--agrees that backstage intrigue and chaos took a destructive toll on the production. Admittedly miscast, confused, and finally traumatized, Claire Bloom could hardly be heard beyond the first few rows, and oddly remembers her character as "the wife of a murdered president hiding out in a border-hotel."
Actually, the entire play takes place in Dallas and is concerned with a woman whose name is never revealed. In the text, published posthumously in 1988 by New Directions, she is identified only as the Woman Downtown. According to Williams, this character was modeled after Martha Mitchell, sequestered in a Downtown Washington hotel during the Watergate hearings. William's Woman Downtown is a captive under constant surveillance because she has first-hand knowledge of an attempt by right-wing businessmen to take over the government. Those businessmen--her husband is one of them--and are rightly afraid that she is getting ready to spill the beans.
In the hotel lounge, the Woman Down-town meets King (Quinn in Boston, James Victor coming up at the WPA), and a red-hot sexual romance develops, shoving political intrigue aside.
Perhaps the debut production's coup de grace came from the late Kevin Kelly, critic for the Boston Globe, who wrote a killer review--"What a mess, oh, what a mess"--causing producer David Merrick to cancel the next scheduled stop, at Kennedy Center, and the Broadway opening.
The declared purpose of the current WPA production is to focus on the political motifs of "Red Devil" and make them dominant. To this end, the company is using the May 1976 post-Vienna text. (During its long exile, "Red Devil" was produced in Vienna, in January 1976; London, in 1977; and Vancouver, in 1980.) William's apocalyptic ending first appeared in Vienna: a sound-and-light show that depicts a revolutionary uprising of inner-city street-gangs.
Europeans loved it. America was burning.
The Ashley Equation
When Michael Wilson saw Elizabeth Ashley in "The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore," at the WPA in 1987, he was, in his own words, "blown away," and said to himself, "I have to work with her!"
In 1989, Wilson was invited to join Houston's Alley Theatre by Artistic Director Gregory Boyd, who had been Wilson's teacher and mentor at Chapel Hill. Boyd had remembered Wilson's display of unique talent when he directed a 1985 student production of Williams' last Broadway play, "Clothes for a Summer Hotel." After serving one year as dramaturg and casting director, Wilson matriculated to associate director. Now he could make Elizabeth Ashley a firm offer. But when he asked her to play Lady in "Orpheus Descending," she was unavailable. The next season, at Wilson's invitation, Ashley came to Houston to see the young director's highly acclaimed production of "Angels in America." A strong professional friendship was developing.
In the fall of '95, WPA's Kyle Renick asked Wilson to come to New York to talk. "People who like Tennessee Williams recognize each other and have bonds," says Renick, who had heard good words about Wilson's work at the Alley. Quickly discovering Wilson's friendship with Elizabeth Ashley, Renick popped the question, "What Williams play would you like to do?" Wilson answered, "Nobody's done 'The Red Devil Battery Sign'!"
Resnick responded wistfully, with a measure of regret, "I know, I know!"--for what he knew was that "Red Devil" required space for a big production. "What about the Mariachis?" he continued. "We have this little tunnel of a stage. We cannot do it!"
But Wilson deftly counter-punched: "What if we do it without the Mariachis and I can get Elizabeth Ashley?"
Loving the idea, Renick exclaimed, "I dare you! I dare you!" The game was on.
This was not the first time that Elizabeth Ashley had been thought of for the role of Woman Downtown. Prior to the play's mounting in London, Williams wrote to producer Gene Persson: "What's needed is fine performances by perfectly cast actors. I would be delighted, for instance, with Keith Baxter and Elizabeth Ashley .Impeccably true performers are the only insurance a play can own."
But when Ashley read the "Red Devil" text that Wilson sent her, she was confused and confessed that she couldn't understand it. Asked if he had a vision of the play, Wilson replied that he planned to focus on the King-Woman Downtown relationship set against the Kennedy assassination.
Elizabeth Ashley signed on.
To accomplish the promised cuts, Wilson and his dramaturg, Linda Dorff, did more than remove the Mariachis. Also cut were important characters who had been in every version of the text: La Nina, King's daughter, and her boyfriend McCabe. This removes a scene showing King's volatility, for he is obsessed with his daughter, who was a singer in his Mariachi band before she ran off. When La Nina returns, pregnant and unmarried, with her lover, King responds with murderous rage. Still, Wilson believes that only dedicated Williams aficionados will note the deletion.
The director makes grandiose claims for "The Red Devil Battery Sign," comparing it to Shakespeare's history plays; and he argues that Williams with "Red Devil" did for the '60s and '70s what Tony Kushner's "Angels in America" did for the '80s.
Hugely supportive of his director, Kyle Renick states, "I think that Michael Wilson has given 'The Red Devil Battery Sign' coherence. For the first time, coherence." In the process, this WPA team has created one more version of the play.