Q&A with Director Brenna Geffers

Q: What's different about this production of Suddenly Last Summer?

A few things might be unique to Die-Cast’s production of Suddenly Last Summer. Right away, you will see that we are using the stage directions as performative text. We share almost all of Tennessee Williams's stage directions for Suddenly Last Summer. We hope this will bring a purer experience of his poetry and world-building directly into the audience's imaginations. Some of his most beautiful, most lyrical text is nestled into these stage directions. As the story continues, the way the stage directions are embodied changes, and we hope that this journey will be an exciting one for festival audiences. 

Another unique element of this production is the casting. As the stage directions are a big part of our production, we don’t use much design at all. We want the words to conjure the world, not literal wicker chairs and lacy dresses. This extended into the casting. Most of this cast would not be in a traditional production of Suddenly Last Summer. We are using members of our ensemble who can evoke a certain quality of the character rather than matching the traditional “type.” We want you to listen, to believe what we are saying rather than what you are seeing, much like Catharine wants when she tells her story. 

Q: Why show it at the Philadelphia Fringe?

While we are mostly based in Philadelphia, Die-Cast normally travels around the country with our work. We partner with other arts companies, galleries, and festivals. So, when the opportunity arose to share Suddenly Last Summer with our home city, it felt exciting to do so.  In a much less sexy way, it is also very practical. Suddenly Last Summer is a big show. We have eight actors and a percussionist. Sharing the work in Philadelphia first allowed us to call upon our supporters here to help us get the time and resources necessary to rehearse the piece. 

Q: What's with the pink hair on Mrs. Venable?

It’s in the stage directions! Aunt Vi’s pink hair actually became the window through which we entered the piece. Last fall, I sat down to re-read the script for the first time in a long time to see if I could imagine Die-Cast doing such a well-known classic. When Aunt Vi enters, the stage directions say she has pink or orange hair. This delightful description made me see the work differently. Tennessee Williams is giving a hint about the larger-than-life word he is creating. Suddenly, I could see us following his stage directions and finding ourselves in his lyrical world. It invited us to leave realism behind and embrace the poem he had written for us. 

Q: Anything else to know?

We are doing Suddenly Last Summer in rep with Green Eyes, so the artists who have smaller roles in Suddenly Last Summer become the stars of Green Eyes. It is fun for our collective to all have different and challenging roles to take on, and we think it will be fun for festival audiences to see that, too. 

Q: How does this relate to your other work at the TWFest over the years?

In the simplest terms, Die-Cast is an ensemble, so festival audiences might recognize faces from our other works, be it from Pericles in 2017 or the Hotel Plays from last September. This particular combination of our ensemble has never all been in Provincetown at the same time, and we have one brand new actor in our ranks! But at our heart, we are a collective.  In a deeper way, in 2016, I directed a production of The Hairy Ape in the Wharf for the Tennessee Williams Festival. The New York Times said that we “stripped the play to its bare essentials: a brutal allegory…”

I hope that someone might say the same thing about our Suddenly Last Summer.

You can purchase tickets to Suddenly Last Summer here.