BWW Review: PRT's Superlative ECCENTRICITIES OF A NIGHTINGALE Extends
1948's Summer and Smoke was rewritten in the 60s by Tennessee Williams and what resulted was a more clearly structured/themed play with the same central characters entitled The Eccentricities of a Nightingale. Music teacher Miss Alma (Ginna Carter), daughter of an Episcopal minister Reverend Winemiller (Brad Greenquist), was passionately in love with her neighbor young Dr. John Buchanan (Andrew Dits) and when that love was unrequited rather than become a miserable spinster, she turned to prostitution. Now in a rare and lovely production of the refined play at PRT, poetic spirit is alive and well in Miss Alma, the Spanish word for soul.
BWW Review: THE ECCENTRICITIES OF A NIGHTINGALE Beautifully Tells a Tale of Romantic Love and Spiritual Longing
Centered around the same characters first introduced in his play SUMMER AND SMOKE, Williams now explores how despite their differences, John Buchanan (the almost too handsome Andrew Dits) and Alma Winemiller (Ginna Carter who totally embodies the quirky character who sings like a Southern nightingale), are still magnetically drawn to each other after he returns home to Glorius Hill, Mississippi, following his Summa Cum Laude graduation as a medical doctor from Johns Hopkins University. The preacher's daughter boldly seizes on a chance to follow her heart's inclinations in their small town where, too often, dreams die quickly. Tennessee Williams' subtly seductive play centers on the passionately complex and sometimes cruel relationships to which love becomes vulnerable, when we are strong enough to allow it.
