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Written by DCist contributor Andrej Krasnansky
Welcome to Monk's Place, where you can get your fill of spirits.
In their production of Small Craft Warnings, Washington Shakespeare Company has transformed their lobby into the dive bar in which Tennessee Williams set his play. The walls are lined with kitsch and pinups; the jukebox looks straight out of the '70s; the smoky atmosphere is palpable (fortunately without an overwhelming smell). Audience members are welcomed pre-show by the Bar Spirit, ethereally played by Erin Kaufman, to sit down at tables and on stools, beginning a night of up-close-and-personal revelations.
Small Craft Warnings is one of Williams's later works and is filled with strong, damaged characters but not a solid plot. We get to know Monk, who hints at a dark past; Violet, this play's twitchy and incoherent Blanche DuBois; Steve, who follows Violet around like a lovable puppy; Leona, the angry beautician; Bill, self-obsessed nowhere man; Doc, who was stripped of his license for operating blind drunk; and Bobby and Quentin, stand-ins, perhaps, for Williams for when he was young and innocent and then old and jaded. There are brawls and there are times when characters lock themselves in the bathroom and cry, but for the most part the play exists to show us the lives of the characters and what has made them who they are.
In this dive, it's easy to laugh and cry with the characters as if you had been going to Monk's for years. Director Jay Hardee weaves their tales together in a thoughtful, exploratory manner, though sometimes the staging of the monologues gets in the way of the actors' powerful abilities. When Quentin (Christopher Henley) tells us about his loss of his ability to be surprised, a couple of the characters stand in as trees, reminding one of a middle-school performance. Instead of acting out every possible line in a soliloquy, it was nice when the characters simply told their tale. Joe Palka as Doc and John C. Bailey as Monk are particularly skilled at telling their story and holding interest throughout. The only weak point in the lineup was Kari Ginisburg's Leona in the first act, when almost all her lines were the same note of anger. Later in the play, however, Ginsburg showed her versatility, especially when trying to reconcile with Violet.
The up-close nature of the staging allows for a slight feeling of danger. The actors engage the audience before, during, and after the acts, interacting with them in often close proximity. At one point, Violet (Mundy Spears) slumped over to a man in the front row and sat on his lap, just before Steve (Brian Crane) reveals that "she gave [him] a clap once." Seating the audience in the bar increases the illusion so much that you feel welcomed into the dive's family, which makes it all the heartbreaking as the family falls apart.
In the end, Monk opens the door of the bar to listen to the sound of the waves, saying that the beach sounds different at night, a "private sound." In WSC's Warnings, we get to listen in on the private sounds of eight souls, and the result is as haunting as Leona's favorite violin piece on the jukebox.
Small Craft Warnings runs through May 10 at Clark St. Playhouse. Tickets are available online.
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