Don’t be put off by the highfalutin’ title (Suddenly, Last Summer) or author (Tennessee Williams) of the latest Ringwald production. Far more telling — and accurate — is the collective screaming-mimi label LIZ-A-PALOOZA!, applied to the company’s current two-show repertory Elizabeth Taylor tribute. If director Joe Plambeck and company kid because they love, then this sidesplitting send-up of one of the actress’s iconic performances shows a campy adulation that knows no bounds.
This production is not drawn from the adapted Taylor film, but returns to the one-act stage play, a lightning flash that feels even quicker than its hour-skimming running time. Set in the flamboyant New Orleans home of lascivious eccentric Violet Venable (Lauren Bickers), the tawdry plot finds her plying a financially motivated surgeon (Mikey Brown) to help silence the rumors surrounding her beloved son Sebastian’s death while abroad. Yet this is no simple sweep under the rug: Violet’s own niece Catharine (Marke Sobolewski), Sebastian’s gorgeous traveling companion turned disturbed and manic after bearing witness to the event, will not be silenced by anything short of a lobotomy. Still, even shady Dr. Sugar has some compunction, and insists on hearing what Catharine has to say — with the help of some good ol’ 1955 medicinal truth-serum mumbo-jumbo — before determining her course of treatment. Even for all its inference, the filthy, lurid tale does not disappoint; mathematically speaking, it’s sensational to the power of awesome.
In the hands of the supporting cast, every corner of every syllable is explored and used as lowbrow comic fodder. Interjections and asides are used liberally, but the flow of the play never ventures too far from the source material just begging for misinterpretation. The physical comedy of Bickers’s flailing inflection, squinty reproach, wandering cane, and occasional human scooter (Anne Faba) are matched by a bold Southern intonation that elicits titters even before the vocal aerobics approach a Louis Armstrong bray. Sour-faced sullenness and social ineptitude serve Genevieve Jona well in her turn as a handler from the Catholic mental hospital, and the desperate parasites that are Catharine’s mother and brother (Carrie Lynn Hall and Vince Kelley) complete the picture with their sniveling, shrieking haste to sell out the obstacle between them and Sebastian’s money. Against them all, Brown’s straight man is unmatched; frankly, just to inhabit the stage with this zoo and not crack a smile is a coup.
Yet all these laudable side shows fall away with the appearance of the main attraction, and Sobolewski instantly takes command. With a combination of diva composure and unhinged frenzy, his saucy and dangerous Catharine hangs on to the comic potential of a low-budget parody, all migrating man-brassieres and untrustworthy set pieces (which, in this context, are compliments to costume designer Vince Kelley and scenic designer Katie Orwig). Yet at the same time, the performance traverses into a practiced and skilled dramatic territory that holds the mockery together; this is not strictly a Taylor impression, but the actor’s own character inspired by the star power of his muse. Special touches, in the form of Plambeck’s distinctive spotlight and dark jungle sounds, help elevate the heroine’s titanic, much-anticipated monologue into something divinely hysterical — in every sense of the word.
Irreverent, uproarious, and ultimately adoring, this Suddenly, Last Summer is an over-the-top cavalcade of humor that neither asks permission nor begs forgiveness. Where evisceration ends and homage begins may be impossible to extricate, but where to squeal with laughter is made grotesquely clear: at the very beginning, then straight through to the end.