Prostitution. Helplessness. Passion. Sexual repression. Money. Desperation.
A selection of some of the most uncouth and desolate characters compose a set of short, rarely performed one-act plays written by Tennessee Williams that will be produced by the Raleigh-based Find the Light Repertory Company. The production’s focus, according to Gene D’Onofrio, the company’s founder, director and producer, is to portray the women whom Williams fashioned in their natural, desperate element.
“Tennessee Williams, if you look at all of his plays, they’re always desperate women. They come from his sister and his mother,” D’Onofrio said.
Though Tennessee Williams is well-known for his Pulitzer Prize-winning plays A Street Car Named Desire and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, the company is presenting the plays that not only reflect aspects of Williams’ own life but, according to D’Onofrio, also introduce characters who lead significant roles in his later work.
“I’d like [students] to see that these are a sketch book. These are his sketch book, and you’ll find all of these characters ending up in his long plays, like A Street Car Named Desire,” D’Onofrio said. “I’d like them to notice that and relate them to his longer plays.”
According to Jeffrey Bergman, an actor in one of the plays and the company’s publicist, the production is intended to draw the audience’s understanding of Williams’ plays away from overused drama toward an individualized compassion for each of the characters.
“The image of Marlon Brando beating his chest as Stanley Kowalski and yelling ‘Stella’ in A Streetcar Named Desire is almost a cliche at this point,” Bergman said. “I want students to look past Brando, look past the celebrated moment, and see this quiet kid [Williams] who watched his alcoholic father terrorize his family to the point where his sister cracked up and got the front of her brain sliced off to shut her up. And people think Prozac is bad!”
What the audience should see, according to Bergman, are the traits that embody Kowalski’s character — just as Williams wrote him.
“This kid banged out stories on a typewriter about the hell he witnessed to save his life. He used plain language. He had an eye for detail. He had great empathy. He had a great sense of humor,” Bergman said.
However, according to Bergman, the audience should try to understand the plays, but should not feel compelled to scrutinize the characters or their actions. He suggests viewers just let the stories hit them “in the gut.”
“These stories are so good — when we tell them, they will stop you cold … Great art does that. It stops you cold,” Bergman said. “If we don’t stop the audience cold for at least one second in time, we didn’t do our job.”
The company make-up is self-sustaining, according to Bergman. Everyone who is involved with the company plays a dual role: to perform the duties for which they were hired and to construct and oversee all other aspects of the production.
“We’re like an old-fashioned troupe — we built the sets, we move stuff on and off stage, we do it all. And then we go to Texas Roadhouse restaurant and decompress,” Bergman said.
Though every member of the company is important in the production’s overall outcome, D’Onofrio plays a vital role. He is in his early 70s, and has done everything from serving on reconnaissance missions during the Korean War to living in Europe to meeting Tennessee Williams and Truman Capote.
“He is living proof that age is nothing but a number,” Bergman said.
D’Onofrio is also living proof that following one’s own passion creates both success and life experience.
“If you’re really unsure, go with your heart for two years and see if it doesn’t turn you on, and you can always go back and do something else,” D’Onofrio said.
D’Onofrio’s advice comes from his own familiarity with the subject.
“My father wanted me to be something different too — a lawyer,” D’Onofrio said.
However, D’Onofrio did not pursue his father’s wish; he instead searched to fulfill his own aspirations, leading him to enroll at Parsons School of Design, where he studied interior design and found a flair for set design. Though he experimented with acting, his profession has rested mainly in directing and producing. When he lived in Europe, he produced and directed several American plays in European theaters.
“We did American playwrights with a lot of various accents; we did Williams there, too, and Arthur Miller and William Inge,” D’Onofrio said. “I consider all of these people American classic authors. I like the whole group of them.”
Both D’Onofrio’s children have followed in their father’s footsteps. His daughter, Elizabeth D’Onofrio, is an actress, film producer, acting coach and a cofounder of the Run River Film Festival in Winston-Salem. His son, Vincent D’Onofrio is an actor and plays the character Robert Goren on NBC’s Law & Order: Criminal Intent.
“That’s my little boy. Well, he’s actually not so little anymore, he’s 6’4″… I started [him] off in community theater, and then he went on to acting,” D’Onofrio said. “[My children] are both extremely talented.”
Though other members of the company’s staff have their own remarkable stories, the focus should remain, according to D’Onofrio, on the plays it is producing. Each play has its own story to relate to the audience, and, in turn, the audience has an invaluable lesson to learn from each play.
“Remember Robin Williams ripping up some textbook in Dead Poets’ Society? I want students to forget about being students and just listen to the words. I want them to do what Tennessee Williams did, pick up a pen, or if not a sheet of music, a play, a paintbrush, or dance, get what’s locked up inside, outside, get it down,” Bergman said. “Don’t let the Simon Cowells of the world stop you from trying.”
