The Ground Floor Theatre Company (GFTC) is currently presenting THREE PLAYS, featuring three one act plays by the great American playwright Tennessee Williams.
The first play, AT LIBERTY, focuses on Gloria La Greene (Helena Cielak), a struggling actress who returns home, in the early morning, after a night out.
Her mother (Emma Wright) awaits, and their strained relationship reveals Williams’ recurring theme of domineering mothers and the suffocating nature of family dynamics.
In AUTO DA FE, Eloi (Willy Manton), a young, sexually repressed postal worker, resides in a boarding house managed by the no-nonsense, very morally conservative Madam Duvenet (Emma Wright). Eli’s life is thrown in to free fall when he opens a very lewd letter meant for a friend. His frazzled brain can’t reconcile that a friend would be interested in such a ‘disgusting’ letter?! He unburdens his mental distress with Duvenet.
The final play in the trilogy was THIS PROPERTY IS CONDEMNED. In this play, the back story is that Willie (Helena Cielak) is a 13 year old girl from Mississippi, who is far too worldly wise for her age. She dropped out of school years ago, her parents have died, as has her much loved elder sister Alva, and she is now living in a condemned boarding house.
The play starts with Willie walking along a railway track within her doll when she comes across a 16 year old Tom who is carrying a kite. Tom is struck by the unusualness of Willie and starts up a conversation that gets to the heart of Wille’s painful world.
Of the three play THIS PROPERTY IS CONDEMNED was the play that reached me the most. Williams lyrical piece was very poetically and exactly performed. It was the perfect way to end the night with.
A cast of only three impressively cover the three plays. Favourite performances were by Emma Wright as the mother in AT LIBERTY, William Manton was excellent as the very soft natured, brittle Eloi in AUTO DA FE, and Helena Cialek as the terribly lost Willie in THIS PROPERTY IS CONDEMNED.
A fine creative team, headed by a very taught production by director Megan Sampson, featured Meg Anderson’s compact set and elegant period costumes, Topaz Marlay-Cole’s incisive lighting, and Mandy Briggs atmospheric soundscape. The cast effectively handled the deep south accents due to Laura Farrell’s work.
There is no-one quite Williams to dramatise and orchestrate orchestrate human emotions. Venture in to America’s deep south about ba century ago with GFTC’s THREE PLAYS, the late night show (9pm start, duration under an hour) at the Old Fitz until the 15th August 2025.
Production photography by Robert Miniter
