For those who are suckers for storytelling, let me warn them that Dear Mr. Williams ran only over the weekend just past. The Tennessee Williams Festival St. Louis brought in Bryan Batt, who created the piece and performs it, for three shows. Batt, of course, is an actor who has had a SAG Award for “Mad Men” and several encounters with the Drama Desk Awards.
The show is a cabaret act without music, and that’s no insult. Batt weaves his personal story with quotes from Williams, the way a singer might tell stories and then fall into some fine Gershwin song. Batt’s a native New Orleanean, a real yat, from the sort of family has for generations participated in Mardi Gras balls and cotillions. He was, he says, always a kid interested in beautiful things, thanks to his mother. He discovered theater and Tennessee Williams in high school, and found that Williams loved New Orleans. And then, slowly, he recognized what he was seeing in Williams was what he was seeing in himself.
Batt’s a fine storyteller, giving us tales of the New Orleans we know and the New Orleans we may not know, family stories and insider glimpses of his world growing up. The Williams quotes fit in smoothly, wise and deep. We even end up with stories about Helen Hayes.
If the show’s come and gone, why am I talking about it now? Because this is the sort of thing the festival does well, finding these smaller, offbeat things that are related, the sort of events that are worth taking a chance on. Dear Mr. Williams certainly was.
Dear Mr. Williams
Tennessee Williams Festival St. Louis