The name Tennessee Williams is familiar to almost anyone with even a cursory knowledge of theatre. But through all his life and much of his work runs great threads of sadness, guilt and sorrow, much of which can be traced to his great love for his sister, Rose.
Taking place in a private nursing home in the 1990s, Tennessee, Rose tells the story of the 80-year-old Rose Williams flashing back through time and her jumbled memories to show her troubled youth and her relationships with her brother Tom and her strict mother Edwina. Rose’s new nurse, Felicia, is desperate to make a connection with the troubled old woman, and, despite the warnings of the Doctor, tries to break through.
It’s difficult to portray mental illness accurately, and it's to the credit of the script, direction and the actors that Anne Kidd’s portrayal of Rose is both believable and tasteful. It’s a varied and nuanced performance, with sudden flits from the quiet and monosyllabic patient to the frenetic and wide-eyed girl struggling with bouts of schizophrenia.
In contrast is the gentle and coaxing presence of Felicia (Helen Katamba), always kind and trying to help, feeling like an island of sweet calm. Tennessee Tom himself, as played by Aron Dochard, is an at first surprisingly rare participant in events, but that fits the thematic sense of his guilt and his pain at Rose’s fate. Additionally, if one ever needs to look at his feelings on the matter, Williams’s oeuvre more than covers it.
It’s a beautiful play, stepping through the life of a figure known far better for the echoed ripples she left running through the life and work of her famous sibling allowed to shine. What’s more, the play, if a little stilted at moments, still captures the sorrowful waste of lives in times when mental illness was less well understood and barbarously treated.
This is a fitting epitaph to the love between a brother and a sister, as well as between a carer and a patient.