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.