{"id":2654,"date":"2017-03-20T04:21:58","date_gmt":"2017-03-20T11:21:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/?p=2654"},"modified":"2017-03-20T04:21:58","modified_gmt":"2017-03-20T11:21:58","slug":"pacino-takes-on-tennessee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/blog\/2017\/03\/20\/pacino-takes-on-tennessee\/","title":{"rendered":"Pacino takes on Tennessee"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you’re anything like me (and I believe at least some of you are), you can never have enough Tennessee Williams<\/strong>.\u00a0 Recently I dashed back to Boston to see Night of the Iguana<\/em><\/strong> with Elizabeth Ashley<\/strong>, Amanda Plummer <\/strong>and James Earl Jones<\/strong>.\u00a0 Last week, it was a play about Tennessee Williams at the Pasadena Playhouse <\/em>starring Al Pacino<\/strong>, Garrett Clayton <\/strong>and Judith Light<\/strong>.\u00a0 This new play was billed as a “development production”, but it sure seemed pretty polished, from the star-laden cast to the swanky set to the ticket prices.\u00a0 Mind you, I’m not complaining – the rare chance to see Al Pacino at work is worth every penny.<\/p>\n

The play is a fascinating character study of the final years of Williams’ life told through the eyes of one of his last beaus, playwright Dotson Rader<\/strong>.\u00a0 Onstage Rader was portrayed by Miles Gaston Villanueva<\/strong>, and if his name is not as familiar as his colleagues’, he was no less talented (or, for that matter, hunky).\u00a0 Garrett Clayton has been on quite a roll.\u00a0 He starred in King Cobra<\/em><\/strong> (based on gay porn pup Brent Corrigan<\/strong>), he was a lead in Hairspray: Live<\/em><\/strong>, and now he’s holding his own opposite Al Pacino.\u00a0 That he’s holding his own clad in some skimpy undies only gilds the lily.\u00a0 I must note the breathtaking Andrew Dits<\/strong>, who makes the most of one brief scene.\u00a0 Judith Light<\/strong>, who never disappoints, tackles a character clearly based on the trustee of Williams’ legacy, Lady Maria St<\/strong>. Just <\/strong>– who has been described as neither a lady, nor a saint, nor just!\u00a0 Light is one of those rare stage creatures who stalks rather than walks, who intones rather than recites, who becomes rather than acts.\u00a0 She is never less than riveting.<\/p>\n

It would all be for naught without a galvanizing presence at the center, and Pacino (or “Mr. P<\/strong>” as Light calls him) is certainly that.\u00a0 In a masterful performance that could easily become a caricature, he etches a painfully nuanced portrait of an artist in decline.\u00a0 He even captures Williams’ almost musical vocal cadence.\u00a0 The play has some rough edges, but it’s a tantalizing morsel of things to come.\u00a0 Should anyone want my notes, all they have to do is ask.\u00a0 For once, I refrained from spouting my unsolicited opinions backstage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you’re anything like me (and I believe at least some of you are), you can never have enough Tennessee Williams.\u00a0 Recently I dashed back to Boston to see Night of the Iguana with Elizabeth Ashley, Amanda Plummer and James Earl Jones.\u00a0 Last week, it was a play about Tennessee Williams at the Pasadena Playhouse<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2654","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-breaking"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2654","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2654"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2654\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2655,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2654\/revisions\/2655"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2654"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2654"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2654"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}