STAGE REVIEW : ‘Small Craft’ Warning: Characters Set Adrift

Tennessee Williams’ “Small Craft Warnings” is reminiscent of his earlier “The Night of the Iguana.” As in “Iguana,” a bunch of losers gather in a tawdry setting that serves as a crucible for examining their lives.

The plays bear another similarity. While generally considered a valuable example of this great writer’s talents, “Iguana” (first produced in 1961) nonetheless exposed his developing obsession with social degeneracy that would weaken his later work. This preoccupation is in full bloom in “Small Craft Warnings” (1972), one of the handful of less-relevant and unresonant dramas he wrote in the latter stages of his career.

At Cal State Fullerton, director Annie Fields-Walters gets game performances from her collegiate cast, but they can’t give the play what it doesn’t have. There is no tension; nothing builds, and nothing is resolved in satisfyingly human ways. The play is a prolonged anticlimax.

Besides, Fields-Walters is not able to meld all the individual voices gracefully. Williams has provided many small-framed people living through meager personal disasters, and the focus shifts uncomfortably from one to the other (the play is a series of solos, a point underscored by designer Jennifer Sechrest’s spotlighting).

Connecting with any of them is difficult, even Leona, the “mean drunk” who occupies center stage by getting noisy about her problems, especially her dumb stallion of a boyfriend (John Ferdinand) and the persistent memory of her doomed homosexual brother. As Leona, Debbie Korkunis offers one of those animated performances that is sure to please a crowd--but her Leona lacks depth; we don’t know what she’s about, why she’s unhappy, angry.

Much of that is Williams’ fault. All the characters are hard to read beyond the obvious, and that prevents us from linking with any of them. There’s Monk (Thomas C. Sunstrom), the bartender who runs the anonymous Southern California beachfront saloon they all gather in, and Doc (Christopher DuVal), a stoned doctor who practices medicine illegally.

There’s also Violet (Crissy Guerrero), a discarded young woman who uses sex like a personal mantra, and Steve (Jim Skousen), her boozy, befuddled boyfriend. Later, a cynical homosexual screenwriter (Jim Gray) and his callow pickup (Jeremy Johnson) enter the scene. Williams uses them to reflect, in blurred ways, on the uneasiness that can come with being gay.

On the positive side, this production does feature Robert Wyatt’s nicely crafted set, which has the darkly burnished appearance of a well-traveled neighborhood bar. It looks like a place where nobodies going nowhere would waste their days.

‘SMALL CRAFT WARNINGS’

A Cal State Fullerton production of Tennessee Williams’ drama. Directed by Annie Fields-Walters. With Crissy Guerrero, Christopher DuVal, Thomas C. Sunstrom, John Ferdinand, Debbie Korkunis, Jim Skousen, Jim Gray, Jeremy Johnson and Sean R. MacArthur. Set by Robert Wyatt. Costumes by Janice R. Kidwell. Lighting by Jennifer Sechrest. Makeup by Ann M. Schumerth. Sound by Donald Peterson Jr. Plays today through Saturday at 8 p.m., Sunday at 5 p.m. and a matinee Saturday at 2:30 p.m. at CSUF Recital Hall, 800 N. State College Blvd., Fullerton. Tickets: $5 to $7. (714) 773-3371.