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TWF’s feature production begins with The Writer, an affably unhurried J. Samuel Davis, making his way down the aisles of the Grandel theatre, addressing the audience with a prologue that’s a combination of the play’s stage direction, and text devised by director Michael Wilson. It’s a clever way to set the scene, literally, as furniture, set decorations and props are brought onstage and placed to the playwright’s clear specifications. Great beginning to some classic Tennessee Williams.
Written in 1955, his Pulitzer Prize-winning three-act takes place over the course of an evening at the Pollitt Family Plantation in the Mississippi Delta, where all of the loved and detested family members are gathered to celebrate Big Daddy’s 65th birthday. This is the perfect setting for Williams to do what he does so well - to lay bare life’s knotty truths, and examine how his characters respond, with no punches pulled.
