3 One-Acts Foreshadow Williams’ Nascent Power

Solidly staged and thoughtfully performed, “Tennessee Williams’ 27 Wagons--and More” at the Egyptian Arena Theatre is a bill of rarely produced Williams one-acts, fascinating snippets that serve as blueprints for some of Williams’ more famous full-length dramas.

A noted recycler of his own work, Williams was known for tweaking plays endlessly and for using characters more than once.

A case in point is “A Perfect Analysis Given by a Parrot,” which opens the evening. It’s one of Williams’ lesser efforts, interesting primarily because its two female leads later resurface, hilariously, in “The Rose Tattoo.” In this play, Flora (Tracy Pulliam) and Bessie (Danica Sheridan), comical Southern spinsters decked out in their tacky finest (costumes by Pat Tonnema) blow into a St. Louis tavern in search of men.

Pulliam and Sheridan seem too short in the tooth to ring true as these faded barflies. Avner Garbi, who directs all three offerings, opts for a surface treatment of “Parrot,” largely ignoring the subterranean poignancy that would elevate it above the level of mere camp.

Fortunately, Garbi’s work on the other two plays is assured, and a superlative cast displays a pitch-perfect appreciation for Williams’ regional effusions.

Tomas S. Giamario’s versatile set quickly transforms from St. Louis tavern to squalid French Quarter boardinghouse for Williams’ 1942 “The Lady of Larkspur Lotion.” Considered by many to be a precursor to “A Streetcar Named Desire,” the play revolves around Mrs. Hardwicke-Moore, a boozy, self-deluding Blanche Dubois prototype, played with a wrenching blend of anguish and faded gentility by Pulliam.

As the Writer, another expert in self-delusion, Mark Bramhall sallies to defend the pitiable damsel when their mutual landlady, the harsh and pitiless Mrs. Wire (Irene Roseen) threatens to evict her.

During an era of sexually explicit media, it’s a testament to Williams’ enduring talent that his early work, “27 Wagons Full of Cotton,” still has the power to shock.

First published in manuscript form in the mid-1930s, this steamy tale about Jake Meighan (the wonderful Adam Gregor), a domineering Southern cotton gin owner, and his obese, childlike wife Flora (Sheridan, excellent here) paved the way for Williams’ later dramatic forays into sexual pathology and fetishism.

As Silva Vicarro, a man with a grudge against Jake who takes his anger out on Flora’s hide, literally, Bramhall wisely underplays his kinky character, rendering Silva both terrible and terribly sexy.

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“Tennessee Williams’ 27 Wagons--and More,” Egyptian Arena Theatre, 1625 N. Las Palmas Ave., Hollywood. Fridays and Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 7 p.m. Ends Sept. 23. $15. (310) 289-2999. Running time: 1 hour, 45 minutes.