Janet Shea as Flora “Sissy” Goforth in The Tennessee Williams Theatre company of New Orleans’s production of The Milk Train Doesn’t Stop Here Anymore.
Flora Goforth is known as Sissy to her friends, but her immense personality overshadows that seemingly cute nickname. Tennessee Williams named his female protagonist in The Milk Train Doesn’t Stop Here Anymore with his usual gift for, and fondness of, poetic symmetry. The play is indeed about Mrs. Goforth “going forth” into the next world, but not before she tries to ensure that she does so on her terms. For those of you who saw the Roundabout Theatre production at the Laura Pels in 2011, I am sorry to say that you have not actually seen this play. Although Olympia Dukakis gave a powerful performance, the production felt too connected to the realistic world. The written play has a blatant framing device in the form of three stage assistants, called Kuroko in the Kabuki tradition, who announce their function at the start of the Prologue. The play is not entirely of this world, as befits Mrs. Goforth’s imminent journey.
I had yet to see a live performance of the play that reflected this fact. Then, a few nights ago I sat in the Sanctuary Arts Center in New Orleans to watch The Tennessee Williams Theatre Company of New Orleans’s intelligent and inspired production of Milk Train. My first experience with this exciting new company came last year, when I saw them produce a collection of three Williams one-acts, two of which were world premieres. The energy, close attention to the script, and creative staging present in those pieces were even more focused in this full-length production.
Director Augustin J. Correro (who also serves as Co-Artistic Director of TWTC along with Nick Shackleford) and I have spoken several times about stage directions, and I cannot stress enough how thrilling it is to watch a director truly engage with these aspects of the script and find new levels of a play like Milk Train. For example, the commitment to the disconnect between Mrs. Goforth and her mysterious visitor, Christopher Flanders, and the rest of the cast of characters on the property was heightened by the choice to have the three stage assistants play the other characters. Though not how the play was cast on Broadway in 1964, this choice is very successful, as it brings the symbolic devices of the play’s structure to the forefront.
The stage hands admit early on that their “hearts are invisible, too,” a point seen most clearly in the role of Frances “Blackie” Black, played by Julie Dietz. Blackie is a character who’s main function is not unlike the intercoms and tape recorders she uses to tell her stories: she is there to listen and repeat. Although the character occasionally has views of her own, her presence is so purely functional that it provides a true challenge for a production. Dietz’s performance is so stylized that she is practically a robot, a choice which I found made the character make a great deal more sense. She is a pure device, with an obscured heart. She belongs to the world of the stage hands, who move Mrs. Goforth through her day, playing parts as needed, but not wasting time with emotional investment.
Levi Hood as Christopher Flanders in TWTC’s The Milk Train Doesn’t Stop Here Anymore.
This is not to say that the whole play is performed devoid of true feelings and emotions. Instead, this streamlined casting both fleshes out the play’s style and also focuses the story more directly on Williams’s inimitable lead character. Janet Shea’s performance gives Mrs. Goforth a perfect blend of strength, vulnerability, desire, fear, and wit. She is at times terrifying, hilarious, pitiful, and glorious. In other words, her humanity grounds the play and allows the audience to feel for her journey without being distracted by the desires of other characters. While watching Shea command the audience during Mrs. Goforth’s many monologues, I thought again of how rare it is to see a play today where a female character above the age of forty would get to have an entire play to herself.
And Mrs. Goforth uses her time to do a variety of idiosyncratic tasks: she is dictating her “memoirs,” supposedly for a book deal, she is trying to protect her estate from friends, employees, and strangers, and she is also trying to deny her failing health. Into this private world of a secluded island estate comes a young man who has managed to get past the guard dogs. Is he a hustler trying to cozy up to Mrs. Goforth in order to gain her trust and steal her money, or is he truly a wandering artist who wants to build mobiles and simply keep Mrs. Goforth company? Christopher Flanders comes bearing dual gifts of a mobile entitled “The Earth Is a Wheel in a Great Big Gambling Casino” and a book of poems. Levi Hood’s portrayal exudes a charm and innocence to the role that add to the mythic features of his character. For Chris comes bearing Mrs. Goforth one more gift: an usher into the afterlife.
That’s right. A bit like Robert Redford playing a handsome and polite Death in The Twilight Zone episode “Nothing in the Dark” (aired in 1962), Chris is here to help Mrs. Goforth with her passage. Not that he is Death personified, but rather that he has a certain reputation around town as “The Angel of Death,” since he tends to come visit women of a certain age right before their time has come. Hood’s Chris is honestly interested in companionship, and grows weary of trying to convince Shea’s Mrs. Goforth of this. Yet when the moment of Mrs. Goforth’s death comes to pass, he rises to the occasion and stays with her until the end. The selflessness and compassion present in this task shines through in Hood’s performance, and is the perfect companion to Shea’s final release.
As mentioned previously, Hood’s Chris and Shea’s Mrs. Goforth are of a more naturalistic world - one in which people have real desires and emotions, but also one in which Hood’s power might possibly be an otherworldy gift. This production shines in these moments due to the power of Williams’s words that these actors are able to bring to life. But there is another aspect of this production that is truly astonishing: the degree to which it takes Williams’s stage directions and unusual staging requests seriously. The Japanese influences are present not only in the device of the stage assistants, but also the use of a kimono Mrs. Goforth dons to perform a remembered Kabuki dance, and the screens which the stage assistants move about the space. The mood and spirit of all of these facets of the script are fully present on the small stage of the Sanctuary Arts Center, which was an absolute joy to behold.
Last but not least, I must give credit to the actors playing the two stage assistants: Kyle Daigrepont and Linnea Gregg. Diagrepont’s Witch of Capri was hilarious and delightful, and was made more impressive when put in contrast to the variety of other roles he took on throughout the show. Gregg’s Simonetta, a local servant in Mrs. Goforth’s household, was a strong foil to Diagrepont’s characters, and the two of them made the small world surrounding the Goforth house seem more fully populated than a play with five actors would seemingly allow.
This production of The Milk Train Doesn’t Stop Here Anymore brings this larger than life play into a somewhat contained space without losing any of the grand feel and scope of the piece. I was truly impressed and grateful for this, as I have always believe in the play’s potential. I look forward to seeing what The Tennessee Williams Theatre Company of New Orleans will do next. If you live in New Orleans, you still have a few days to catch this production, which closes April 2nd! Go forth and buy your tickets here.