‘It’s heroic’: Tennessee Williams theater fest goes on despite a pandemic and a hurricane – Cape Cod Times

Censorship is the theme of this years Provincetown Tennessee Williams Theater Festival, but the four-day event has also turned out to be about resilience.

Those involved this year have determinedly created art through a pandemic with the many off-Cape artists waiting a year to be able to travel to present their work and some have faced the fears and challenges of a hurricane, too.

The Mahagonny Songspiel, written by Bertolt Brecht with music by Kurt Weill, will be presented with music and puppetry each day of the Sept. 23-26 annual event by members of AllWays Lounge in Exile from New Orleans.

Final rehearsals to bring the show north to Provincetown to celebrate playwright Williams had just begun last month when Hurricane Ida hit Louisiana, according to festival co-founder/curator David Kaplan.

They continued to rehearse, in rehearsal space without electricity and running water, going home to places without electricity and running water, he says. I thought (the show) might have to be canceled … but Dennis (Monn), the director, said no, (readying for the Williams festival) is what is giving them a sense of purpose.

Theyre doing something. Theyre not passively enduring a hurricane. Theyre creating something … and looking forward to coming to Provincetown and showing what theyve got, Kaplan says.

Here, the production had to be moved outside because of COVID-19 concerns as have most of the presentations and the festival is providing a keyboard and drum kit to replace what was destroyed in New Orleans. The theater company has been indefatigable, Kaplan marvels. Its been very inspiring. … Its heroic. They deserve support.

The complex musical score the group will perform is described as Hitlers least favorite collection of songs. Brechts tangos, love ballads and musical commentary are part of a fable of innocence that addresses a morally bankrupt society. The reaction at its 1927 premiere nearly a century ago? Nazi and Communist sympathizers blew whistles to stop it.

As part of telling that history of trying to censor thought, AllWays Lounge will be handing out whistles to the Provincetown audience, too.

Thats just one of numerous creative ways productions in the festival will explore and create conversations about the Tennessee Williams & Censorship theme. Thats the same focus as 2020 when organizers managed to put on a much smaller, outdoor event but the emphasis has changed from Puritans and writer Williams battle with censors.

In 2021, were discussing when, if ever, censorship is appropriate, Kaplan said when he announced the season.

The festival will include four plays by Williams, who spent a few summers in the 1940s in Provincetown and wrote some of his best-known work there, including The Glass Menagerie.

The festival will include Williams 1940 Battle of Angels, the run of which was cut short by Boston censors, presented by Blessed Unrest, a subversive physical theater ensemble from New York City. The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Department of Theatre will present Why Did Desdemona Love the Moor?, an unfinished short story by Williams in which a Black screenwriter in 1940s Hollywood has a secret affair with his films white leading lady, a piece never produced because of the interracial relationship.

Back this year will be The Municipal Abattoir, which Kaplan staged last year on a dune as a Hitchcock-inspired thriller. The Philadelphia-based Die-Cast ensemble will explore The Demolition Downtown, a pointedly political short play by Williams in which a suburban family shuts themselves up in their house as explosions rock their countrys capital.

Other shows presented will include the Longing Lasts Longer rock manifesto by Penny Arcade (with a connected interactive workshop) confronting cultural amnesia as a form of censorship. A Sex play from 1926 that got Mae West thrown in jail will be produced by international ensemble The Goat Exchange, during a Tea Dance at The Boatslip Resort and Beach Club.

The Witch is a satire based on a 1616 drama by Thomas Middleton, with an all-female cast from the Outer Cape group Campfire Quorum playing women from the Pilgrim ship Mayflower.

Beyond live performances, there will also be workshops, parties and educational programming, all connected to Williams and the censorship theme. One-time events will be a Tennessees Latest Peep Show burlesque show bump and grind response to censorship by Lefty Lucy who also had to rehearse from a damaged New Orleans home; and a Cut Blanche interactive censoring display of the 1951 film of A Streetcar Named Desire, led by the former festival executive director Jef Hall-Flavin.

Beyond censorship, a pandemic and a hurricane, Kaplan adds the countrys political divide to the challenges that artists involved with the festival and beyond have to face. While some left-leaning people are angry or dismissive these days of people in conservative southern states, Kaplan said its important to think about the artists and others living in those states who dont agree with politicians stands on controversial topics and actions.

It is significant that we have a Tennessee Williams festival in New England, and not just in Mississippi (where Williams was born) and New Orleans (where he spent much of his later years) because he is an American writer, Kaplan says. We dont need to allow politicians and other people to define American identity for us. We can have our artists both dead and alive and future help to identify American identity. … We share this American cultural figure.

In New England, he says, we have an obligation … to recognize and help support those people in the South who are struggling to be heard, and that includes artists.

Noting that a group from Texas Tech University has been part of the Williams festival for years, Kaplan says, No matter how we feel about the governor of Texas, thats not the point. Not everyone in Texas feels that way and we want to encourage the people in Texas with whom we have common interests to come celebrate, and meet each other.

Then he adds with a laugh: And conspire.

Contact Kathi Scrizzi Driscoll at kdriscoll@capecodonline.com. Follow on Twitter: @KathiSDCCT.

What: The 16th annual Provincetown Tennessee Williams Theater Festival

When: Sept. 23-26

Where: Various venues around town

Tickets and information: twptown.org and 866-789-8366

COVID-19 protocols: Most performances will be outdoors or under tents with open sides. For indoor shows, a vaccination card or negative PCR test is needed for admission. Masks and social distancing required at all shows.

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'It's heroic': Tennessee Williams theater fest goes on despite a pandemic and a hurricane - Cape Cod Times