The actor discusses his one-man play about young Tennessee Williams
Tennessee Williams is, of course, considered one of the most central American playwrights of the twentieth century. His dramas such as A Glass Menagerie, A Streetcar Named Desire, and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof have been considered iconic virtually since their premieres. Actor/playwright Jacob Storms has written and performs Tennessee Rising: The Dawn of Tennessee Williams. The drama is a solo actor play about an early period in Williams' life encompassing the years 1939 to 1945 when Williams was still largely unknown but on the cusp of fame with the premiere of A Glass Menagerie in 1944,
Tennessee Rising was previously presented in New York and other venues to critical acclaim. The List (UK) described the show as "Engaging throughout… a satisfying hour of succinct historical storytelling." David Vernon in The Theater Times stated, "Not only is Tennessee Rising engaging but it is also historical and deeply revealing. Audiences will literally hang onto every word.” And Deb Miller in DC Theater Arts described the play as "Engrossing and informative...a show filled with fascinating insights..."
Tennessee Rising: The Dawn of Tennessee Williams was originally directed for the stage by Alan Cumming and will run January 19 - February 2 at The Laurie Beechman Theatre in Manhattan.
In addition to appearing as a performer at such venues as Carnegie Hall, The Hollywood Bowl and the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Storms is known for his recurring role (Serge) on the' Amazon Original Series, Red Oaks. I posed some questions to Jacob Storms about Tennessee Rising: The Dawn of Tennessee Williams.
QUESTION: Tennessee Rising has previously been presented in New York City. Has the play been altered in any significant way since its initial production, and if so, how?
JACOB STORMS: I will be doing the hour long version I did recently in Edinburgh, so it will be slightly shorter than the normal 75 minute version but I learned from my experience in Edinburgh that the play still works just as well at 60 minutes.
Q: Why do you think Williams' plays remain so popular, particularly since so many of his dramas deal with very dark themes?
STORMS: I think the theatre is one of the last places where we can explore darker themes, which is especially important in today's world, which has gone out of its way to avoid any real introspection. Tennessee never shied away from controversial subjects and characters, which is why his work is still so relevant today, because audiences crave unfiltered truth.
Q. Is there anything in Williams' writing style that especially appeals to you?
STORMS: I love how so much of Williams' work is a kind of a heightened poetic realism that we don't hear today and was even unusual during his time. Tennessee really thought of himself as a poet first and playwright second, so hearing his beautiful lyricism juxtaposed with his derelict settings and characters is a very appealing combination.
Q. The play takes place during the period between 1939-1945, during which for the most part Williams was still a struggling writer. Why did concentrating on this era in his life particularly interest you?
STORMS: When I first became inspired to create a play about his life, I realized so much of his later life had already been explored in solo plays but his younger, formative years were still unknown to the public. Unless you are a Tennessee Williams scholar,
you are probably unaware of the years of struggle and early professional failures he had to endure before his first hit show, The Glass Menagerie, cemented him as the great American playwright we know him as today. I also felt that shedding light on his younger years would be inspiring to other young artists who may be struggling to establish themselves, as it was for me. Also, the fact that so much of his early professional years coincided with World War 2 allowed me to incorporate some of Williams' feelings on the war, which have also remained unknown until now, and gives a much needed alternate perspective on that period that we don't normally hear.
Q. Have you had any further insights about this formative period in Williams' life since the premiere of Tennessee Rising?
STORMS: I worked on developing the play for six years before I performed it for the first time, so there isn't much about that period of his life that remains unknown to me. What I do find so striking are the parallels between the years the play covers and the time we are living in now. It is shocking to see the parallels and realize how little our politicians and so called thought-leaders have learned (or not learned) from those years, since we continue to repeat the same mistakes today to a terrifying degree.
Q. Do you have a favorite play or other literary work by Williams, and if so which one and why?
STORMS: A Streetcar Named Desire is probably a cliché answer, but it really is my favorite show by Williams. It is a play that is both epic and extremely intimate at the same time, a feeling I try to recreate in Tennessee Rising. The 1951 film version was my first exposure to Williams and I have gone on to see several superb stage productions that were all very different, yet they all worked so well, which shows how strong Williams' script is and how timeless those characters are.
Q. Is there anything in general that you would like to tell audiences about this production of Tennessee Rising?
STORMS: I took so much inspiration from Williams' first few lines in The Glass Menagerie, which is the perfect description for what Tennessee Rising is: "The play is memory. Being a memory play, it is dimly lighted, it is sentimental, it is not realistic. In memory everything seems to happen to music... I am the narrator of the play, and also a character in it." In Tennessee Rising, I invite the audience in to serve the role of kind stranger to young Williams, who he shares his experiences with, sometimes in real time, sometimes in retrospect. I like playing with the idea of young Williams in Tennessee Rising being alive and living his life in front of us as well as being a ghost who is stuck in a kind of limbo, reliving his early years so that he can move on.
Q. Would you like to share with us what your next projects are?
STORMS: I have adapted Tennessee Rising for television, which you should see on-screen soon! I am also putting the finishing touches on my first novel, as well as working on several other solo plays about historical figures and several screenplays. Stay tuned!
-Interview conducted by Paul Hansen