STAGE REVIEW : Small Doses of Williams Still Potent

Tennessee Williams’ one-act plays don’t show up on stages much these days. Most directors, when Williams comes to mind, turn to the full-length classics such as “The Glass Menagerie” and “A Streetcar Named Desire,” ignoring his prodigious library of playlets.

That’s one of the reasons “10,” a collection of four Williams one-acts at the Cabrillo Playhouse, is worthwhile. The directors, Tom Amen and Buck Stevens, are clearly fans of this great writer and realize that his mini-dramas carry their own weight.

They’ve picked an intriguing quartet: “Auto-Da-Fe,” “The Lady of Larkspur Lotion,” “Talk to Me Like the Rain and Let Me Listen” and “The Long Goodbye.” None really can be called a refined piece with a solid resolution, but they are often poetic representations of the central style and themes of Williams, who used his playlets both as meditations on dramatic ideas and blueprints for characters and plots.

Stevens and Amen, who also act in “10,” and their cast treat the one-acts with obvious respect. The execution is sometimes rough, but the evening carries the imprint of commitment, never a small thing.

The best is saved for last: “The Long Goodbye” is clearly the most developed of the four, hinting at the tense family dynamic that Williams would explore more fully in “The Glass Menagerie.” At the center is Joe (Amen), a struggling writer who reflects on his family while a friend (Randy Horton) hovers nearby, reading a Hemingway story and offering wry observations.

We learn of Joe’s pretty, willful sister, Myra (Beth Stinson), their dying mother (Flora Burke) and a wealthy suitor (Stevens) who wants more from Myra than a casual date. Stevens’ direction is reasonably precise, and both Stinson and Amen offer their best performances of the program.

“Auto-Da-Fe,” directed by Amen, opens the program. It tells of an excitable young man (Stevens), his overprotective mother (Burke) and a letter containing a pornographic homosexual photo. Stevens gets a little excessive in this one, but he does convey the character’s confusion over his sexual identity. Burke is appropriately blank to everything.

Up next is “The Lady of Larkspur Lotion” whose heroine, Mrs. Hardwicke-Moore (Stinson), may have presaged Blanche DuBois in “A Streetcar Named Desire.” This character is even more extreme than Blanche: As she is on the verge of a boozy plunge into delirium tremens, her only protection is a fantasy boyfriend waiting for her on a Brazilian plantation.

Her landlady (Burke) is not only interested in the rent; she wants to destroy the delusion. A writer (Amen) living next door drops in to share his own fantasies and shield Mrs. Hardwicke-Moore from the landlady. As directed by Stevens, Burke is all nastiness, and Amen is chivalrous but with an appropriate hint of selfishness. Stinson, though, tries too hard to infuse her role with pathos.

She tries too hard in “Talk to Me Like the Rain and Let Me Listen” as well. She and Stevens play a couple living in a Manhattan apartment and dreaming of a better life. While he tries to rekindle their relationship, she fixates on a vision of growing old in an isolated hotel, away from the real world. Stevens is solid, and Amen’s direction gives the play a vaguely dreamlike quality that serves it well.

‘10: An Evening of One-Act Plays by Tennessee Williams’

Directed by Buck Stevens and Tom Amen. With Stevens, Amen, Flora Burke, Beth Stinson, Randy Horton, Gary Kersham and Randy Baughman. Lighting and sets by Amen, Stevens and Jim Baldwin. Plays Wednesdays through Saturdays at 8 p.m. through July 20 at the Cabrillo Playhouse, 202 Avenida Cabrillo, San Clemente. Tickets: $9 and $10. (714) 489-1264.