Theatre--Performance

The Glass Mendacity at Cite' des Arts
Produced by NathanaelT Productions LLC
Directed by Jody L. Powell

 "a streetcar full of laughs"......The Times Picayune
"literature’s most dysfunctional family, the DuBois clan - Tennessee with a Twist"........Tennessee Williams/New Orleans Literary Festival


Tennessee Williams’ more well-known plays "The Glass Menagerie", "A Streetcar Named Desire", and "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" are family dramas, and as such, they are filled with fragile and damaged Southern characters who are driven to madness, alcoholism, deceit, and fantasy.  Thus, they are easy targets for lampooning and parody, which is just what the authors of this play have done with them.  In addition, the authors have taken family members from each play, mixed them up, and created an entirely new outrageous brood. Audiences with a strong familiarity of Williams’ plays will get the most out of the show, but the humor of "The Glass Mendacity" is broad enough to make it appealing to all. 


In this mingling of characters where families are merged and relationships are shifted, Big Daddy, the patriarch dying of a spastic colon is married to Amanda Dubois who still recounts the number of gentlemen callers she had in her youth (the number grows with each new telling).  Together, they are the parents of Brick, so rendered catatonic by self-pity and alcohol that he comes across as a real stiff; Blanche, the tragic nut case, now married to the working-class brute Stanley Kowalski; and Laura, the dreamer whose shyness is underscored by her limp.  True to her original story, Maggie the Cat, the scheming seductress, is still married to Brick.  And of course, there’s Mitch, a combination of the gentleman caller and the lawyer acquaintance who properly greases the wheels and can’t keep his eyes off of Maggie.


The two-act comedy has plenty of verbal gags twisted from Williams' original scripts that will keep the audience in stitches.  The actors have free range of the stage, delivering the original plays’ best lines with sharp characterizations and all the flair as if they were playing the originally written roles.

The cast includes:
Michael Cato as Mitch O'Connor
Katryn Schmidt as Maggie the Cat
Mary Gail Lamonte DeVillier as Amanda Dubois
Brick Dubois as himself
Deborah D. Ardoin as Blanche Dubois
John Snyder as Stanley Kowalski
Billy Walker as Big Daddy Dubois
Erin Segura as Laura Dubois
Performances dates:
Friday, June 15 at 7:30 p.m.
Saturday, June 16 at 7:30 p.m.
Sunday, June 17 at 2:00 p.m.
Friday, June 22 at 7:30 p.m.
Saturday, June 23 at 7:30 p.m.
Sunday, June 24 at 2:00 p.m.

 Tickets are available at citedesarts.org or by calling 291-1122 or at the door.

By Maureen Morley and Tom Willmorth
Story by Doug Armstrong, Keith Cooper, Maureen Morley, and Tom Willmorth
Produced by special arrangement with Broadway Play Publishing, Inc.