Summer and Smoke is one of Tennessee Williams’ good but not great plays. And, New Village Arts Theatre, in Carlsbad, is currently giving it a good but not great production.

It’s easy to spot vestiges of Mr. Williams’ great plays in Summer and Smoke. There is a leading male character who is confused about his life and hides his confusion in drink and debauchery (as in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and The Night of the Iguana). There is a leading female character who is lonely and looking for love but unable to connect (as in The Glass Menagerie) and who turns to drugs to cope. The demands of polite society in the South also play a large role in hemming in the characters (as in several of Williams’ great plays).

To wit: Summer and Smoke is set in a small Mississippi town close enough to the Gulf of Mexico to feel the effect of its breezes. Alma Winemiller (Jo Anne Glover) and John Buchanan (John DeCarlo) grew up as next door neighbors, and there was always a “come closer, no go away” dynamic to their relationship. Alma is a minister’s daughter, and John is the son of the beloved town doctor (David Macy-Beckwith). John has gone away to train as a physician and has recently returned to open his practice and eventually succeed his father. Alma stayed in town and found herself with few possibilities as suitors (and not attracted to the ones who were available). She has made a life for herself by singing, teaching voice to mostly untalented students such as Nellie Ewell (Aimee Burdette), and organizing a club to discuss ideas, listen to music, and analyze literature and poetry.

Jo Anne Glover as Alma Winemiller

^{Photo by Daren Scott}

John has developed a taste for drink and loose women while away, and his behavior scandalizes his father, who, as the play opens, has just relented from his determination to move John out of his house and into a hotel. John becomes more contrite and because he is good-looking immediately attracts a number of female patients to his medical practice. But, he continues to spend time with Rosa Gonzales (Nadia Guevara), whose father (Brian Abraham) operates a casino outside of town. The play focuses on Alma’s attempts to rekindle her childhood relationship with John, John’s ambivalence about being forced into a romantic involvement with Alma, and the constraints placed on Alma by living with her crazy-as-a-fox mother (Dana Case) and her sanctimonious father (Jack Missett). Ultimately, the action of the play causes the roles to reverse: John finds meaning in his life and becomes a town hero while Alma loses her life meaning and succumbs to the sort of behavior that caused the gossipy town folk to wag their tongues about John when he first reappeared.

Director Kristianne Kurner has worked with the large cast (also including Lisa Dempsey, Sam Floto, Jared Spears, and Li-Anne Rowswell) to bring out the loneliness and casual cruelty of small-town Southern life. Her approach emphasizes matter-of-factness and avoids allowing the characters to become stereotypes, but it also takes the dramatic wind out of the play’s sails at times (for example, a satirical scene involved the culture club was visually effective but fell flat as comic relief on opening night). She has cleverly framed the action by flashing back to interaction between Alma (Roma Watkins) and John (Jonah Gercke) as children, and these mimed interludes allow for scene changes to occur (Tim Wallace designed an evocative set, well lit by Karin Filijian; Mary Larson contributed fine period costumes, Bonnie Durben did her usual excellent job with the properties, and Adam Brick’s sound design was subtle enough that I couldn’t tell whether the train I heard at a key moment was his recorded sound or was actually passing through the station immediately behind the theatre).

As Alma, Ms. Glover credibly showed how loneliness fueled her transition from being sexually repressed to being sexually desperate; I felt that I could have seen more of the consequences of Alma’s drug use in her performance, however. Mr. DeCarlo made a handsome Johnny, but his reverse transition was less credible to me. Of the supporting players, Ms. Case gave a savvy performance as Alma’s loony mother, while Mr. Missett nicely underplayed her father. As Nellie, whose return from college helps to set the transitions of Alma and Johnny into motion, Ms. Burdette displayed an ability to take over a scene when called on to do so.

Summer and Smoke lived in the shadow of Williams’ masterpiece, A Streetcar Named Desire, as it opened and closed on Broadway while its predecessor continued to run. The New Village Arts production provides an opportunity to see a rarely produced Tennessee Williams play and to allow audiences familiar with Mr. Williams’ work to watch him reflect on past successes and develop characters and themes that would come more fully to life later in his career.

New Village Arts’ production runs through June 20.

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