The set features shabby-not-so chic furniture, crowded together and covered with lots of flower patterns. In other words, largely the cliched vision held by many urban Northeasterners of how Southern people live. In fact, this is St. Louis, 1937, deep in the heart of the Great Depression. People are doing what they can to survive and, if possible, to rise above their situation. A Lovely Sunday for Creve Coeur is so quintessentially Tennessee Williams, it’s almost a parody of itself. There’s Dotty (Jean Lichty), who has had a one-night stand with the principal of the school where she works. In her mind, she has magnified the “magic” into a full-blown love affair, with a marriage proposal expected any minute. Where is Shep Huntleigh when you really need him? She plans to move out of the room she’s renting from the kind and caring, hard of hearing Bodey (Kristine Nielsen), who loves her and wants to protect her. Bodey has planned a picnic so that her twin brother can woo Dotty; Bodey sees a real life with a marriage and kids if Dotty will only give Buddy a chance. In walks the uptight fellow teacher Helena, who insists on calling Dotty by her real name, “Dorothea.” She looks down her nose at Bodey, and her tacky, lower class lifestyle. Even though she knows that Dotty’s pipedream won’t come to be, she still thinks that a life of playing bridge and living in a more desirable district is Dotty’s ticket out of the squalor. Her viewpoint is confirmed with the arrival of the upstairs neighbor, Miss Gluck (Polly McKie); she’s a not-too-bright lump of a German speaking woman who has recently lost her mother. When Miss Gluck has a case of the trots and causes a bathroom disaster, it’s the final straw. It’s almost loading the deck casting the always likable Nielsen as Bodey, the daughter of German immigrants who has very little education, but a big heart. When she dreams of having nieces and nephews, we hope her wish will come through. The small bit of whimsy and vanity she displays in trying to hide her bulky hearing aid with a fake tiger lily provides a glimpse into the kinder, lovelier world she can see in the future. We never see her brother Buddy, but if he’s half the human being Bodey is, Dotty can enjoy not only the fried chicken wrapped in newspaper for their picnic, but also a life which may not be exciting, but which will offer her the stability and level-headedness she so desperately needs.
