Evening Of Tennessee Williams, An

Of the four one-act plays of Tennessee Williams that Coffee Cup Theater Company is presenting at the Rudyard Kipling, only The Dark Room has enough substance to be compelling. Natalie Reece is Mrs. Pocciotti, a care-laden Italian woman who, under persistent questioning by a social worker (Tracy Jones), gradually reveals the shocking truth about her teen-age daughter's six-month seclusion in a darkened room. Reece's accent and delivery go straight to the heart of her character.

The other three plays all feature extended monologues that unbalance the flow and become rather wearisome. In This Property is Condemned, Dana A. Hooper is Willie, a lonely 13-year-old who walks on railroad tracks and carries on about her beautiful dead sister to Tom (Phillip Rudolph), an older boy who chances upon her. Tom is little more than a straight man, now and then interjecting a question as Willie gabs on. In Moony's Kid Don't Cry, Moony (Brian Kelly) listens in almost disoriented mode to wife Jane (Natalie Reece) before she walks out on him after thrusting into his arms their baby she calls "your property." Moony, too, wanted to walk out, but the baby now keeps him homebound.

Talk to Me Like The Rain And Let Me Listen has Man (Brian Kelly) complaining at length to Woman (Dana A. Hooper) about the hard road he's traveled. "They do vicious things to you when you're unconscious in this city," he says, telling her how he woke up naked in a bathtub full of melting ice cubes -- one of Williams's more bizarre conceits. Meanwhile, she has had only water since he left. Her soliloquy centers around her wish to withdraw from the world and live, serviced by a chambermaid, in a West Coast hotel. Neither Kelly nor Hooper make much sense of this ethereal tosh; it's doubtful that anyone could.