Review: Lillian Theatre's Extended Production of Baby Doll - Worth Your Time

Baby Doll
by Tennessee Williams
directed & designed by Joel Daavid
Lillian Theatre
extended through January 22

It is common knowledge that a movie director's vision shapes the outcome of a film, meaning that irregardless of the quality of the actors' performances, film is most assuredly the director's medium. Now in translating Tennessee Williams' screenplay Baby Doll to the stage, Joel Daavid is proof positive that the director is in control. Starting as the one-act 27 Wagons Full of Cotten, when adapted into the film Baby Doll, director Elia Kazan made the atmosphere of place just as important a character as Archie, Flora and Silva. Daavid is determined with his amazingly ample and mood- perfect stage set to transport the audience into the delapidated world of Tiger Tail, Miss. of the late 50s, and cinematically, he does just that. Using an ensemble of actors who play townsfolk to double as ghosts around Archie's run-down homestead is Daavid's original perspective, not a part of Kazan's movie. Some may question the stylized manner in which these characters move around within an otherwise gritty, realistic play, but one thing is for sure: Daavid's re-envisioning does create an undeniably eerie mood that enhances the uncertainty of destiny so apparent at the play's core. The themes of Where to go? and what to do? echo throughout.

http://www.elephanttheatrecompany.com/season4.php