Shirley Knight stars in Tennessee Williams’s surreal IN MASKS OUTRAGEOUS AND AUSTERE at the Culture Project (photo by Carol Rosegg)
Culture Project
45 Bleecker St.
Through May 25, $75-$99 ($35 with code RedMasks35)
866-811-4111
www.masksoutrageous.com
While a new production of Tennessee Williams’s Pulitzer Prize-winning A Streetcar Named Desire has recently opened on Broadway to much fanfare, a smaller, lesser-known Williams work is being staged at the Culture Project on Bleecker St., the world premiere of his final full-length play, In Masks Outrageous and Austere. Taking its title from Elinor Wylie’s poem “Now Let No Charitable Hope,” the surreal multimedia show stars Shirley Knight, whom Williams wrote A Lovely Sunday for Creve Coueur for, as the wealthy Babe, who is married to poet Billy (Robert Beitzel), who has his own male lover, Jerry (Sam Underwood). The three are abducted by the corporate conglomerate Kudzu-Chem and things get ever-more bizarre, amid a set filled with LED panels and two-way mirrors that surround the audience. The show is directed by David Schweizer, who dated Williams at Yale in 1970.
TICKET GIVEAWAY: Tickets are $75 to $99, but twi-ny has four pairs to give away for free. To be eligible to win, just send your name, daytime phone number, and favorite Tennessee Williams play to contest@twi-ny.com by Friday, May 4, at 5:00 pm. All entrants must be twenty-one years of age or older; four winners will be selected at random. If you do not win a pair of tickets, you can use the code RedMasks35 to get tickets for $35.