Something Unspoken – Bewley’s Cafe Theatre – Review by Frank L.

Written by Tennessee Williams

Bewley’s Cafe Theatre @ Powerscourt till July 23rd.

Cornelia (Catherine Byrne) is a grande dame of the Southern States of America – Meridian, Louisiana 1958 in particular. She is in her early sixties, rich and a bully.  She wants to be the regent of the local chapter of the Daughters of the Confederacy. She has held every other office in the society but now she wants to be the Queen Bee. However she does not want to stand for election; she just wants to be acclaimed by the membership of whom she is for the most part scornful. Grace (Noelle Brown) is her companion of fifteen years or so, a bit of a mouse of a woman, reticent certainly but knows how to negotiate to an extent her way around Cornelia.

The set consists of a comfortable study with a table and two chairs with an elegant sash window to the rear right. There is a suitably elaborate contraption of a telephone which sits on the table. It is the third character which, when it rings and demands attention, represents the outside world. These two women have to permit its intrusions. It interrupts conversations between Cornelia and Grace which results in “something unspoken” between them. Williams does not specify what the something is.

The play was written in 1958 just at the end of the claustrophobic McCarthy era. During that era anyone who was not white, male/female couple and happily married with two smiling children was not wholesome, was un-American, therefore subversive. Certainly two women living under the same roof were not wholesome… That relationship creates the tension which is the heartbeat of this enthralling 45 minutes or so of theatre. However the tension is alleviated by Williams as he uses judicious moments of humour to lighten the atmosphere.

The performance of Byrne and Brown complement each other. Byrne has a physical dominance which she uses instinctively to boss the timorous Grace. However she cannot hide her own vulnerabilities as she tries to orchestrate events occurring in the wider world to her advantage. Brown does not succumb to Byrne’s force but she has to resort to stratagems to counteract them. But throughout there is a topic which remains silent between the two women. It is this unspoken topic which is in the parlance of the twenty first century “the elephant in the room”.

The production is intense, it is tight and it is a very fine piece of theatre.