Tennessee Williams: "THE TWO CHARACTER PLAY"

The English-language Nordic premiere of this incredible, rarely performed Tennessee Williams play. Along with Eugene O’Neill and Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams is the foremost playwright of 20th-century American drama, famous of course for his iconic cult melodramas on screen and off - The Glass Menagerie, A Streetcar Named Desire, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and more… THE TWO CHARACTER PLAY is the one Tennessee Williams stage play you have not seen.

The Two Character Play by Tennessee Williams

Directed by Lars Junggreen

A meta psychological thriller.

5 performances

Wed 13 – Sunday 17 November 2024

[Booking opens soon]

"I think it is my most beautiful play since Streetcar, the very heart of my life"…

/ Tennessee Williams

/"...The Two Character Play is at its heart desperate, a portrait of madness and despair, a reminder that we’re all of us trapped on our own little stages, struggling with life’s tape decks and lighting rigs and missing staircases in an attempt to hold it all together."/ (London, 2021)

On stage – an exciting, tour de force performance by strong character actors Andreas Lyon (US/Cph) and Vanessa Poole (UK/Malmö), accompanied by a choreographic movement ensemble of four.

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THE PLOT

The play begins with a brother and sister backstage. The curtain about to open on their latest play. They are actors, Felice and Clare.

Reality and fantasy are interwoven with terrifying power as the two face a (perhaps imaginary) audience expecting a performance of The Two-Character Play.

It is an illusion within an illusion, created from isolation, panic, and fear. Two fragile, tempestuous siblings flinging words, embraces and insults, try desperately to limp through to the end of their day.

So what is this “TWO CHARACTER PLAY” Felice and Clare are eternally committed to performing? Why does the play never have an ending neither Felice can write nor Clare can act? Where has everybody gone? Their theatre company and crew have vanished.

The “actors” we observe in the “play within a play” dip in and out of performance, improvising parts not memorised or not yet written. It becomes increasingly difficult to differentiate the actors from the characters and reality from illusion.

It seems they are playing characters – also named 'Felice' and his sister 'Clare'! Traumatised by the violent loss of their parents when they were children, they are still living in their family home. But isolated from the outside world. In the dark. Or is their home the theatre itself?

Why can’t they get beyond the front door? What are they afraid of?

No matter how hard they delude themselves, Felice and Clare cannot escape from the reality of their deteriorating state. They are in a performance we are watching slowly implode.

As brother and sister, they are interminably entwined. This is a twisted love that spins equally quickly from tyranny and claustrophobia, to laughter, banter and tenderness. What Tennessee Williams called the very "confining nature of human existence", portrayed in this, possibly his most tender and personal play of all.

Thus the audience themselves are confronted with the darker truths of what it is to be human. Don’t miss this joyous, exciting, dramatic performance combining text and body.

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ABOUT THE PLAY & THE PLAYWRIGHT

Surprising both critics and audiences when it opened in 1967, THE TWO CHARACTER PLAY by Tennessee Williams is experimental, hyper-modern, a very meta production, aware of its own theatricality. It is partially autobiographical and took Tennessee Williams over 10 years to write. One of his final works, it was written after the death of his life's second great love, in the midst of his real-life depression, alcoholism and drug abuse.

At the time Williams wanted to experiment and expand his writing style, exploring the surrealist writing styles of Samuel Beckett and Harold Pinter.

The actress Clare and especially the character Clare in the ‘play within the play’ are loosely based on Williams’ real-life relationship with his sister, Rose, a schizophrenic who was lobotomised and spent her life in an institution. This play is perhaps an echo of the life Tennessee Williams and his sister were never allowed to share.

The actor Felice and the character Felice seem to be based on Williams himself, who had been a sickly child with an alcoholic father, an eccentric mother.

*THE TWO CHARACTER PLAY first premiered in 1967 in the US, remained relatively undiscovered for years in Europe, returned to the stage triumphantly in London in 2021. It is now, finally, more relevant than ever to the universal human condition in 2024, in a world facing crumbling borders, warped realities and absurdist socio-political scenarios – more than ever before.

Have you ever seen it performed in Scandinavia professionally? Now is your chance.

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ON STAGE:

Andreas Lyon as Felice https://www.andreaslyon.com

Vanessa Poole as Clare https://www.vanessapoole.com

Ensemble: Stefan Ridell,

Nathalie Drakemyr,

Evdokia Kelessidi,

Eva Söderquist.

CREW:

Directed by: Lars Junggreen

Director of Movement: Mariana Araoz

Director's Assistant: Alexandra Christensen

Dramaturg: Nicoline Thyrstedt Gandrup

Scenography advisor: Marta Cicionesi; Crew: E. Söderquist; Stage manager: R. LeBlanc; Light & sound design: Andrew Christiansen; Music composed by: BASIC BABY; Soundscape & sfx: Olle Nielsen @Rikoschett; Props: R. Gott; Logistics & support: Kevin Benn; Graphics: Anna Brenda; Photography: Smallfield Photo; PR : Opus Anglia

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* THE TWO CHARACTER PLAY in Malmö is a professional performance jointly presented by Playmate Theatre Malmö, in collaboration with HIT International Theatre Arts

THE TWO CHARACTER PLAY by Tennessee Williams is presented by special arrangement with The University of the South, Sewanee, Tennessee.

(Photo image @Smallfield Photo: Tomas Lissåker)