Soaring Again

Make no mistake. They love Tennessee Williams at the Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum.

“We’re Williams fanatics,” said artistic director Ellen Geer. “To me, he’s the Shakespeare of America. His writing is so extraordinary and will always be pertinent. That’s what makes a great playwright. . . . We would like to do his whole canon.”

Shakespeare already is a summer tradition on the open-air stage in Topanga. Williams was running a close second, with five of his plays produced there between 1986 and 1994, including “Night of the Iguana” and much-lauded productions of “A Streetcar Named Desire” and “The Glass Menagerie.”

“We were on a roll,” said Heidi Helen Davis, who directed “Streetcar” and “Menagerie.” And then came word that the playwright’s estate was somehow upset by her interpretation in the ’94 production of “Menagerie.” In it, two actors played the character Tom: one as the young man suffering under the weight of an abusive mother, the other as the older man reflecting on the experience. The estate, it seemed, felt Davis was taking too many liberties by casting two actors for a part that is traditionally played by one.

Davis and Geer were heartbroken. They sent copies of letters and reviews, apologies and promises--all seemingly to no avail.

That the trouble was with “Menagerie” was particularly painful for Geer. In the 1970s, she directed her brother and sister as Tom and Laura Wingfield. The fledgling Theatricum had no money, so she wrote Williams to tell him about the unique casting of real-life siblings. He responded by granting her the rights for only $10.

Now, three years later, the Theatricum has regained the rights to produce another Williams play. The curse will lift Sunday with the opening of “Sweet Bird of Youth.”

“We had our hands slapped. Now we know,” Geer said. “We feel so fortunate to have it [the rights] back again. I’m deeply grateful to the estate.”

“Sweet Bird of Youth,” while not as well known as Williams other plays, deals with some of the same themes: the search for dignity in a callous world, the toll of psychological decay. In the play, an aging movie star, who calls herself Princess Kosmonopolis (Geer), and her kept man, Chance (Richard Tyson) arrive in his hometown where he hopes to reclaim his high school sweetheart, Heavenly (Susan Angelo). As they face their respective failures, Princess and Chance both confront the price--and limited value--of their beauty.

“Sweet Bird,” written in 1959, also came after Williams’ two Pulitzer prizes--for “Streetcar” and “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof”--a period during which Williams reportedly found it difficult to write. Geer sees her character, Princess, as reflecting Williams own difficulties with feeling past his prime.

An irony in “Sweet Bird” is that the principle characters are striving for Hollywood fame; and the Theatricum Botanicum was founded by Will Geer, an actor who was blacklisted by Hollywood. But to his daughter, Ellen Geer, the combination makes sense.

“We live in Los Angeles and your responsibility at the theater is to give a catharsis. All the actors here, to make a living, especially at the Theatricum, they go to their TV jobs,” she said. “And this play shows the absolute meanness of Hollywood.”

BE THERE

“Sweet Bird of Youth” plays Sundays at 7:30 p.m. through July 20, and Saturdays at 8 p.m. July 12-Sept. 13 at Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum, 1419 N. Topanga Canyon Blvd. $12-$15, $5 for children. (310) 455-3723.