The Two-Character Play

Tennesse Williams's The Two Character Play was written 25 years after his famous A Streetcar Named Desire. It was one of most personal works. Tennessee Williams spent almost ten years writing and rewriting this play.

During the course of its evolution, there were several versions of the play. One of these was performed at the Ivanhoe Theatre, Chicago, on July 8, 1971, under the title of Out Cry. Ten years after its first conception, a final reworking was produced. The Two-Character Play, opened at the Quaigh Theatre, New York, on August 14, 1975

After winning critical and popular acclaim with his earlier plays, Williams wanted to experiment and expand his writing style. His later creations had more in common with playwrights Samuel Beckett and the emerging Harold Pinter, than with the name that Tennessee Williams had come to signify. Although the play is a marked departure from the naturalism of his classics, familiar themes permeate. Confinement due to mental illness, repression leading to social isolation and the tyranny and claustrophobia that comes from impinging on one another’s psychological and physical space, are all present in The Two-Character Play.

When the play premiered in its various forms, it was not well received by critics or audiences. At the time many audiences attended the theatre as a form of escapism. ‘The Two-Character Play’ was the exact opposite. Clare and Felice, the actors, as well as the characters they play, cannot, no matter how hard they try to delude themselves, escape from the reality of their deteriorating mental states. Consequently, the viewers themselves are confronted with the darker truths of what it is to be human.

It was very experimental for its time. The language is heightened. There are slabs of verbosity juxtaposed with pauses and stunted sentences.

‘The Two-Character Play’ is partially autobiographical. The actor Clare and especially the character Clare, are loosely based on Williams’ sister Rose, and the actor Felice and the character Felice, on Williams himself. The ‘confining nature of human existence’ was a major theme throughout his work and this play is seen to be his most personal interpretation.

It took Williams over ten years to write The Two-Character Play, longer than any other play, and illustrates an innovation in his writing style.

Plot

The characters in this play, Felice and Clare are two actors on tour, they are also brother and sister. They find themselves deserted by their acting troupe in a decrepit 'state theatre in an unknown state.' Faced (perhaps) by an audience expecting a performance, they enact 'The Two-Character Play'-an illusion within an illusion, an 'out cry' from isolation, panic, and fear.

The plot is confusing and difficult to follow, with little sense of a resolution. ‘The Two-Character Play’ has a concurrent double plot with the convention of a play within a play scenario. Felice and Clare are siblings and are both actor/producers touring the ‘The Two-Character Play.’ They have supposedly been abandoned by their crew and have been left to put on the play by themselves. The characters in the play are also brother and sister and are also named Clare and Felice. The characters of Clare and Felice are psychologically damaged from witnessing the traumatic murder/suicide of their parents. They have remained recluses in the family home since the incident and are attempting to make hesitant contact with the outside world. As the actors dip in and out of performance, improvising parts not memorised or not yet written, it becomes increasingly difficult to differentiate the actors from the characters and reality from illusion.

Performances

The play itself is rarely performed. A 30th Anniversary production was staged in Australia in 2005 at the University of Melbourne with siblings Stephen Ryan and Sarah Ryan playing the roles of Felice and Clare.