A Wonderful Week for Creve Coeur

"A Wonderful Week for Creve Coeur" was written in 1975 – eight years before Tennessee Williams left this world under absurd circumstances in a New York hotel. As is usually the case with great authors, he seems to be writing the same play over and over again. In it, his main philosophical themes and his tender sympathy for romantics who struggle to adapt to pragmatic life flare up ever more brightly. His Blanche from "A Streetcar Named Desire," Laura from "The Glass Menagerie," and Hannah from "Night of the Iguana" seem to be constantly reborn in every subsequent female character. This is also the case with Dorothea, naively devoted to a non-existent love. Through the plot of "A Wonderful Week for Creve Coeur," Williams focuses attention on a single morning and the meeting of four women. With comic irony and great tenderness, he skillfully explores the nightmare of loneliness, the need for human connection, as well as the inevitable compromises one must make to get through the "long race with life." All four heroines in the play are the quintessence of Tennessee Williams's alchemy of characters and the oppressive scent of a withered rose carried toward the hopeless and rapidly approaching sunset of romance. For me, immersing oneself in the sensuous-ironic world of Tennessee Williams is always a risky creative adventure. Despite clear landmarks, there is always the danger that the wave will throw you onto an unknown shore. Despite accumulated experience, each time I carefully and even timidly open the door to Williams's labyrinth – this alchemy of suffering, irony, love of life, and sometimes dark humor. But the effort is worth it – for passing through the portal of a dazzling talent.