The phenomenon that is Tennessee Williams’s The Hotel Plays is coming to the Vineyard this winter. Featuring some of Williams’s most lyrical and powerful writing, The Hotel Plays comes to Cape Town fresh from successful, sold-out performances in New York and London.
The South African première of The Hotel Plays will be performed on 30 July 2016 at the Vineyard and will feature a double bill of Williams’s Talk to Me Like the Rain and Let Me Listen and Green Eyes directed by veteran, multi-award winning director Fred Abrahamse and starring critically acclaimed actors Nicole Franco, Marcel Meyer, Melissa Haiden and Stephen Jubber.
Talk to Me Like the Rain and Let Me Listen was written in the 1950s and features some of Williams’s most exquisite lyrical passages. Set in a suite on the Lower East Side this delicate dramatic poem sees a couple connected by the intimacy of desperation. Nicole Franco and Marcel Meyer star as the despairing lovers. Franco has numerous stage and screen credits to her name and is best known for her memorable performance as Anabella in Mavis Taylor’s legendary production of John Ford’s Jacobean classic, Tis Pity She’s a Whore. Meyer has played leading roles on stages across South Africa, Europe and the United States and has won great acclaim for his interpretations of several of Williams’s leading men.
Green Eyes was written in 1970 and remained unpublished and un-staged until 2008. This intense, power-house play was Williams’s response to the atrocities of the Vietnam War. Set in New Orleans, Green Eyes transfigures a honeymoon suite into a battleground. Melissa Haiden and Stephen Jubber star as the dysfunctional young bride and groom. Haiden is one of Cape Town’s most sought after young actresses and was recently seen playing Desdemona is the Maynardville production of Othello. Jubber’s extensive career as a musical theatre leading man includes performances in West Side Story, Mama Mia! and Jersey Boys. Recently Jubber proved himself a fine dramatic actor with performances in Shakespeare’s Othello and Athol Fugard’s Hello & Goodbye.
The Vineyard’s The Hotel Plays production will include a sumptuous three course, Fleur du Cap wine-paired dinner, in a private dining room. Between courses, patrons will view Williams’s one-acts in two separate suites in the hotel’s historic wing.
THE HOTEL PLAYS
Première: 30 July at 19:00.
Additional performances: 4, 5, 13, 17, 18, 19 and 20 August, at 19:00.
To book please email hotelplays@vineyard.co.za. Tickets cost R650 per person and include the three course, Fleur du Cap wine-paired dinner, in a private dining room, and the two plays.
IN THE MEDIA
Actor Focus: Stephen Jubber – by Peter Tromp of The Next 48hours