Even a minor Tennessee Williams play like Suddenly Last Summer deserves far better than the misbegotten revival the 1958 one-act is being given at North Hollywood’s Whitmore-Lindley Theatre.

Suddenly Last Summer may not be a Williams classic a la The Glass Menagerie, Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, or A Streetcar Named Desire, but it is hardly without its merits.

 It’s got a doozy of a lead role, one that earned Elizabeth Taylor her third Oscar nomination in its 1959 screen adaptation, competing in the same category with Katharine Hepburn, whose featured role was beefed up in the movie version and even in the original play offers a seasoned actress a chance to command an audience’s attention.

 It’s also got a major male character who may never set foot on stage given his untimely demise suddenly last summer, but just hearing about the enigmatic, ill-fated Sebastian Venable as described by his bereaved mother Violet and his traumatized cousin Catherine is almost as riveting as if the closeted homosexual were still using one or the other of the two women as bait.

Not only that, but when the disturbing circumstances surrounding Sebastian’s death are finally disclosed in the play’s climactic final scene, it’s a revelation that can rivet an audience if delivered by an actress with equal parts power and depth.

Avalon Stone is unfortunately not that actress, though perhaps she might not be so painfully bad in the role had she not made the disastrous decision to direct the vanity production herself.

An outside director with talent and vision would first have advised her that to play a Tennessee Williams heroine as if she were a Southern California Gen Z’er in the year 2025 is about as unforgivable as it would be to perform Noël Coward minus posh British diction.

An outside director would not only have insisted that Stone play Catherine with the requisite Southern drawl (think Maggie in Cat On A Hot Tin Roof or Amanda in The Glass Menagerie or Blanche in Streetcar) but that she rein in a performance so lacking in nuance I’m surprised the scenery survives the chewing she gives it.

Her six castmates have apparently been left to their own devises where performances and blocking are concerned.

Stephanie T. Keefer has the experience and smarts to invest Mrs. Holly with the appropriate Southernness and restraint, and though he’s not given much to do, Wylie Keene is not half bad as the cute but rather dim George.

Less successful is Brody Orofino, easy on the eyes but too young and underwhelming to give Dr. Sugar his due, and what’s up with the constant putting on and taking off of his glasses?

There’s not much to say about assistant director Helia Ziba’s Miss Foxhill and producer Phoebe Balson’s Sister Felicity except that they’re in the play.

 Only Tanna Frederick’s steely, imperious Violet Venable escapes mostly unscathed from the general incompetence surrounding her, though Mrs. V does spend rather a lot of time on her feet for someone who’s recovering from a stroke and still relies on a cane for balance.

Unfortunately, once Frederick exits about half-an-hour into Suddenly Last Summer’s 90-minute running time and Stone takes her place, things go haywire, and the last half hour in particular is about as ineptly played and staged as anything I’ve seen in my eighteen years of mostly raving about Los Angeles theater on this website.

At least Caspian’s scenic design with its gauzy drapes and gigantic tropical flowers exhibits some sense of style and vision, and Davin Harris’s lighting is quite good, though Catherine’s hair and costuming is about as wrong for the 1930s setting as the performance itself.

Henry Parker-Elder is stage manager.

Avalon Stone ends her bio with this troubling promise: “She plans to direct many Tennessee Williams plays in the future.” If Suddenly Last Summer is any indication of what’s to come, I can only pray she changes her mind.

Whitmore Lindley Theatre Center, 11006 Magnolia Boulevard, North Hollywood.

–Steven Stanley
August 22, 2025
Photos: Devin Harris

Tags: Los Angeles Theater Review, Tennessee Williams, Whitmore-Lindley Theatre