Theatre – The Hotel Plays

The Hotel Plays by Tennessee Williams

Presented by Defibrillator

The Hotel Plays comprises The Pink Bedroom, Green Eyes and Sunburst – three one act plays by Tennessee Williams performed in a series of rooms in the Langham Hotel, London. All three plays take place in the confined spaces of relatively small hotel rooms, which renders a much greater intensity for the select audience. Defibrillator has done a great job in challenging traditional theatre with this production.

The Pink Bedroom focuses on the unravelling of an eight year affair between a married man and a younger woman who has been “kept” in a pink bedroom. There’s a wonderful twist at the end where the viewer suddenly understands the mixed emotional signals given by the woman towards the man – both parts sympathetically played by Helen George and Gyuri Sarossy. Everything is pink and the colour appears to symbolise the deceit of the relationship on all levels.

Green Eyes is the second play and follows appropriately with another colour in the title perhaps echoing the more familiar association with jealousy. This piece also explores a relationship between two unnamed characters except they are newly-weds. Despite the setting of a honeymoon suite this relationship is also breaking down. The backdrop of the Vietnam War highlights the violent themes of sex and impotence. This middle play is the most intense of the trio. The story line is hard hitting with no relief and the performances from Aisling Loftus and Geithin Anthony are outstanding.

As if needed, the final offering, Sunburst gives some relief (at least on the surface) – this time the players even have names. Miss Sails, a former starlet, works hard to safeguard her sunburst diamond from the thieving hands of Giuseppe and Luigi.

The theme of strong women is represented in all three plays as it is in many of Williams’s major works. Indeed Tennessee Williams spent much of his later life in hotel rooms, even dying in a New York hotel in 1983, thus highlighting the parallels between the character of Miss Sails and his own.

Many thanks to Defibrillator for such an original and thought provoking evening and to my friends at Ocourant for organising the event.