Following *The Glass Menagerie*, adapted and directed by Leonardo Lidi, the LAC is once again staging a play by Tennessee Williams, Suddenly, Last Summer, a drama steeped in symbolism and imagery, which unfolds like a psychological thriller in a claustrophobic vortex of tension and violence. 
For his directorial debut at the LAC, Stefano Cordella, who has chosen to tackle one of the most personal, surprising and lesser-known plays by the celebrated American playwright, has entrusted the translation to Monica Capuani, a scholar who has been researching the English-speaking theatre scene for years, and directs a cast led by Laura Marinoni. 
Many of Williams’s works are deeply influenced by real-life events: in 1943, Rose, his beloved sister, underwent a lobotomy carried out with their mother’s consent; a deeply traumatic event that left an indelible mark on the American author’s life, to the extent that it inspired him to write Suddenly, Last Summer, one of his most autobiographical works. As is often the case in Williams’s works, the conflict between appearance and truth becomes the crux of the story. 
The episode that sets the play in motion is the mystery surrounding the sudden death of the young Sebastian, a gentle soul who aspired to be a poet. The tragedy is recounted from two different and contrasting perspectives: that of Mrs Violet Venable, Sebastian’s mother, and that of his cousin Catharine Holly, with whom the young man spent the last summer of his life at Cabeza de Lobo. Dr Cukrowicz, the psychiatrist tasked with performing a lobotomy on Catharine, is charged with uncovering the truth. Mrs Violet, in a desperate attempt to defend Sebastian’s and the family’s reputation, is prepared to do anything to silence her niece, the sole witness to her son’s death. Mrs Holly, Catharine’s mother, and George, her brother, driven more by personal interests than by a genuine desire for justice, further complicate the story. 
Suddenly Last Summer is a disturbing descent into hell, populated by characters who are both victims and perpetrators. Gestures of affection become tools of manipulation to obtain money, sex or to hide the truth. The setting becomes a space of memory, a place where memories and traumas merge in an interplay of symbols that echoes the workings of dreams.

Director’s notes

Williams considers Suddenly, Last Summer his most poetic work, “a moral fable for our troubled times”. When he saw Mankiewicz’s film adaptation, he was deeply disappointed by the decision to depict Sebastian’s death realistically (not to mention the censorship regarding homosexuality). It is a text rich in symbols and metaphors right from the opening description of the stage setting: “The set design may stray from realism as much as the setting of a dramatic ballet. The interior merges with a magnificent garden that resembles a tropical jungle, a forest from the prehistoric era of giant fern forests, when living creatures had fins that transformed into limbs and scales that became skin. It is a jungle-garden of vivid colours, especially now that it is oozing with steam from the heat following the rain. On the trees are enormous flowers that bring to mind the organs of a body, torn out, still glistening with fresh blood. There are shrill screeches, hissing rustles and lashing noises in the garden, as if it were inhabited by beasts, snakes and birds, all of a wild nature…”. Many elements of the text allude to creation (artistic, biblical, biological) and the death drive. His experience of psychoanalysis and his approach to the Catholic faith certainly had a major impact on Williams’s writing during those years, which he describes as “emotionally autobiographical”. The characters are inspired by his family members and by certain significant events in his life: his sister Rose’s illness, his symbiotic relationship with his mother, his nervous breakdown, his ‘spiritual’ journeys, and his sexuality. Delving deeper into the details of the author’s biography, discovering his torments and vulnerabilities, has allowed me to better pinpoint that feeling which overwhelmed me the first time I read the text: a great act of atonement and purification from pain. There is something cathartic in the violence and brutality that Williams unleashes in the final chapter of *Catharine*. In order to evoke the ‘visions’ present in the text, we devised a stage design that blends temporal and spatial planes: the jungle-like garden becomes the unconscious of the author Williams and, at the same time, of the poet Sebastian. Memories and visions merge in an interplay of symbols that echoes the workings of dreams. It is only in this dreamlike dimension that the desire to be fully oneself can be fulfilled, transcending the appearances imposed by an increasingly miserable and ruthless society.

Stefano Cordella