Interludes

THE HANGOVER REPORT – The dated A LOVELY SUNDAY FOR CREVE COEUR is lesser, perhaps unsalvageable, Tennessee Williams

• By drediman
• October 1, 2018
• No Comments

Kristine Nielsen, Jean Lichty, and Annette O’Toole in La Femme Theatre Productions’ revival of Tennessee Williams’ “A Lovely Sunday for Creve Coeur” at the Theatre at St. Clement’s. Photo By Joan Marcus.

I recently had to a chance to catch a rare revival of Tennessee Williams’ A Lovely Sunday for Creve Coeur Off-Broadway at the Theatre at St. Clement’s, courtesy of La Femme Theatre Productions (indeed, it was my first time seeing the play). Set in St. Louis during the Great Depression, the play tells the tragicomic tale of three single women entering middle age. Each attempt to grapple with, as they see it, impending irrelevance and loneliness through desperate measures of their own.

Unfortunately, there’s a reason why A Lovely Sunday for Creve Coeur is infrequently performed. Despite the valiant though strained efforts of veteran director Austin Pendleton and a game cast, which includes accomplished actresses like the great Kristine Nielsen and Annette O’Toole, the play seems destined to be grounded by Williams’ awkward, one-note concoction of grating comedy and dated, albeit real, feminine desperation.

In tone, the play calls to mind Williams’ The Rose Tattoo. But at least that famously uneven play had memorable moments of soaring, authentic theatrical giddiness and a magnetic central character. Here, neither surfaces. Indeed, the unfunny, unintentionally campy A Lovely Sunday for Creve Coeur, especially in this day and age, may well just simply be unsalvageable.

SOMEWHAT RECOMMENDED

A LOVELY SUNDAY FOR CREVE COEUR
Off-Broadway, Play
La Femme Theatre Productions at the Theatre at St. Clement’s
1 hour, 45 minutes (without an intermission)
Through October 21