The Demolition Downtown
by Tennessee Williams
Proof of vaccination and a face covering are required to enter this venue.
This performance takes place outside.
Estimated Run Time: 1 hour
Directed by Brenna Geffers. Presented by Philadelphia-based Die-Cast ensemble
“Act as if nothing had happened….Don’t say ‘seized.’ Say ‘took over.’”
-Tennessee Williams’ The Demolition Downtown
As explosions in the city rock the house in the suburbs where Mr. and Mrs. Lane live, the television goes blank and gives off a crackling sound when they try to watch the news. Their two young daughters are home; a new government has converted schools to barracks. Mr. and Mrs. Lane mention these things fleetingly, if at all. Their sentences break off. They correct each for polite ways to talk about – or rather, avoid talking about – what’s happening.
The newspapers have stopped delivery, the radios have stopped broadcasting. Or to be precise: been stopped.
At the time the play was published in the June 1971 issue of Esquire magazine, news of the on-going war in South-East Asia was censored in America, in Viet Nam, in Russia, and in China according to different criteria: the need to boost morale by censoring news of defeat, or the censoring done to hide international support and collaboration.
Silencing group knowledge is an aspect of seizing power. In this play and many others, Williams called attention to another aspect of censorship, the polite circumlocutions in private conversations. Emphasizing conformity, the names of the characters rhyme. The Lanes, their neighbors the Kanes and the Paynes, president Stane (who has “surrendered to the, uh, new regime”), and the old Hugh Wayne who has been ordered to the Municipal Abattoir. An abattoir is a sort of a slaughter pen.” Mr. Lane explains to Mr. Kane, added the Lanes had only the barest acquaintance with Wane.
Die-Cast is a collective dedicated to breaking open the relationship between audience and art by creating work for unique and non-theatrical spaces. Founded by Brenna Geffers and Thom Weaver, Die-Cast concentrates on the power of the ensemble in space.