Tennessee Williams’ mind was a bit disheveled towards the end of his life. How do you turn one of his rambling outpourings into a viable theater piece? You hire an innovative creative director like Maria Torres to direct and choreograph it -- as in his play, In the Bar of a Tokyo Hotel, now at New World Stages.
The piece starts with a dynamic Apache adagio duet between two strong attractive dancers -- a sensual Alycia M. Perrin and Ryan H. Rankine in a fluid physical expression of passion. The dancers, not in the original play, give us a look at the passions inside the characters we will see. Then we see the characters -- in a bar encounter between a wandering, nymphomaniacal cougar who seems to be a reflection of Blanche, played with depth and conviction by the very attractive Licia James Zegar, and the stolid Japanese barman (Brandon Lim). It’s a duel between the appropriate (him) and the inappropriate (her).
Enter a very nervous artist (Shashi Balooja), hands trembling, teeth chattering, raving madly about his immersion in his painting, whom we find out has been married to the woman for eight years despite her nighttime wanderings. His troubled emotions, splashed all over the stage, become tedious. Thanks to an amazing sensual dance, including a pole, we can sustain interest.
Act Two starts with a representation of a Japanese dance. Good. It becomes clear that the painter should be hospitalized due to the severely disturbed state he is in; he seems borderline under control. But the performance is constantly overwrought. Williams seems to have tried to allegorize his own need to be absorbed into his writing with the artist trying to unify himself and his painting.
There is talk of dimness and darkness and a possible circle of light, which seems to reflect Williams’ reaction to his fading life at the time he wrote this late play. So . . . he’s still Tennessee Williams, and poetry leaks out despite the painful cry as the woman grieves for her husband and philosophizes. A fine dance duet coda closes the piece.
The set by Xiaopo Wang has a profound simplicity, and is expanded with his projections. Costumes by Vanessa Leuck well express the characters, and Zephan H. Ellenbogen’s lighting enhances everything.
I found the evening to be worthwhile as a historical look at Williams, as a psychological exploration, and as a look at what a really good director can accomplish.
