by Patrick White
Suddenly Last Summer adapted from Tennessee Williams’ play as an opera with a ravishing score by Courtney Bryan, libretto by Gideon Lester and Daniel Fish (who also directed) is receiving a World Premiere at Bard’s Summerscape this month running through 7/19.
As with any Daniel Fish adaptation, liberties have been taken with this new Suddenly, like with his 2019 Tony winning Best Revival of Oklahoma! and his less successful 2021 Most Happy in Concert which staged Frank Loesser’s Most Happy Fella with an all female cast.
Suddenly Last Summer stands out in Tennessee Williams catalog as a long one act which was originally produced off-Broadway on a double bill with Something Unspoken under the collective title Garden District. It has gone on to become the acclaimed, bowlderized and Oscar nominated 1959 film starring Katherine Hepburn, Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift directed by Joseph Mankiewicz and written by Gore Vidal. It has subsequently had Broadway productions featuring Elizabeth Ashley, Blythe Danner and a television version starring Rob Lowe, Natasha Richardson and an Emmy winning Maggie Smith. It has grown in stature since its debut at the York Theatre.
Like William’s most celebrated work, A Streetcar Named Desire, Suddenly Last Summer is set in New Orleans but this story unfolds in a far wealthier neighborhood. Mrs. Violet Venable has invited a neurosurgeon, Dr. Cukrovics to her great home to interview her niece Catherine Holly. Catherine has a gruesome story to tell about Aunt Violet’s son, the poet Sebastian Venable who was brutally murdered last summer on the streets of the fictional Spanish town of Cabeza de Lobo.
Mrs. Venable will do anything to stop the details of what is being said, that her son was homosexual and that he was killed by a gang of street children that he had been exploiting who not only murdered him but then ate large pieces of him. She will go to any lengths to deny this story, including recruiting the doctor to lobotomize her. When the doctor protests that an operation to her brain might not stop her telling the story, Mrs. Venable coolly responds “Yes, but then, who would believe her?”
The play and the opera open with Mrs. Venable creating her narrative of who her son Sebastian was for Dr. Cukrovitz, “It’s Polish for sugar.” She tells Dr. Sugar that her son was a deeply sensitive, world traveling artist who would write one poem a year in her company. They were so close, people would mistake them for a romantic couple.
What we see when we enter the theatre is a triangular sloped stage and two giant green screens meeting upstage right creating a room. There are a row of conference chairs lined up on the side and a work station centerstage left which has lights and photographic equipment which will be used to thrilling effect by the painter Lucy Tarquinio.
We are in a director’s laboratory and Daniel Fish will make use of many devices in telling this story about art, expression, control and a search for truth. We are first delighted by the painterly images which fill the screens dozens of feet high. As Tarquinio drips colors on her screen, the walls fill with colors: green, blue and red swirling separately and together and can evoke foliage or the body’s bloodstream. The painting can also be active and percussive with slashing strokes as it accompanies stories about the Galapagos and the violence of nature.
Tina Benko plays Mrs. Venable with a cool, determined, painterly control of her own as she regales the young man with her life story of her saintly son. She flatters, seduces, teases and blackmails the doctor into getting her way. Branden Lindsay is a solid listener as the doctor and delivers the play’s final line with a deeply moving gravitas.
Nick Westrate and the great actor, Tony award winner Miriam Silverman show up as Catherine’s brother and mother who have their own financial interests in silencing their meal ticket as they stand to inherit $50,000 if Mrs. Venable approves of how her son is depicted.
Michaela Bennett plays Catherine and has most of the music in the show. This is an opera of two opposing views but the argument has been tipped decisively as all of the glorious music and the highest notes piercing our consciousness are sung by one woman whom we must conclude is the truth teller.
The opera also has characters that do not appear in Williams’ play, a Choral Ensemble played by the Young People’s Chorus of New York City. At first, the 11 young children of color enter as nuns with blonde wigs when Catherine arrives at the Venable great house from her private sanitarium, St. Mary’s. They will step out of their habits and are wearing t-shirts emblazoned with the image of St. Sebastian and the phrase “Pray for us” where a football player would have their name, across their back shoulders. The children add a fantastic touch when they run heedlessly round the set evoking the wild scenes described in the text.
Tennessee Williams’ play is frequently described as gothic but in 1959 when the film was made, the studio under pressure from the Hays Code was on the side of Mrs. Venable by demonizing homosexuality in the movie. Two weeks ago the Supreme Court denied trans Americans their equal rights, the horror has always been in the control and suppression of free speech.
Suddenly Last Summer has arresting images, excellent performances and a breathtaking aria at its center.
For more information, please contact the Box Office by phone at 845-758-7900 or via email at boxoffice@bard.edu.
Bard Summerscape presents Suddenly Last Summer, music by Courtney Bryan, libretto by Gideon Lester and Daniel Fish based on the play by Tennessee Williams, from June 25 – July 19, 2026, at the LUMA Theater in the Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts, 60 Manor Ave, Annandale-On-Hudson, NY. Directed by Daniel Fish. Music Direction and Supervision by Nathan Koci. CAST: Mikaela Bennett as Catherine Holly, Tina Benko as Mrs. Venable, Branden Lindsay as Dr. Cukrowicz, Miriam Silverman as Mrs. Holly*, Nick Westrate as George”, Lucy Tarquinio as the painter, Amanda Sherif as the Cover for Catherine Holly, and the Choral Ensemble Young People’s Chorus of New York City. (*The performances of George and Mrs. Holly have been pre-recorded.) CREATIVE TEAM: Associate Director Mikhaela Mahony, Scenic Design by Marsha Ginsberg, Costume Design by Terese Wadden, Lighting Design by Stacey Derosier, Projection Design by Joshua Thorson, Audio Design and Mixing by Garth MacAleavey, Movement Direction by Beth Gill, Hair and Wig Design by Bobbie Zlotnik and Anne Ford-Coates, Makeup Design by Anne Ford-Coates, Producer Carter Edwards, Casting Director Taylor Williams, CSA, Assistant Director Danica Selem, Stage Manager Jason Kaiser, Assistant Stage Manager Sam Forrest, Literary Consultant Thomas Keith, Speech Consultant Gigi Buffington, Dialect Consultant Sam Lilja, Assistant Scenic Designer Erica Zhang, Assistant Costume Designer Adeline Santello, Assistant Lighting Designers Tyler Dubuc and Manny Delgado, Music Assistant Jenia Marquez, Company Manager Madie Reilly.
ORCHESTRA
Piano and Associate Music Director Sean Forte
Tenor Trombone Freddie Frederickson
Bass Eleonore Oppenheim
Cello Leah Coloff
Flute I Isabel Lepanto Gleicher
Flute II Alice Jones
Percussion Clara Warnaar
Saxophone Ken Thomson
Viola Sunjay Jayaram
Violin I Sarah Goldfeather
Violin II Darian Donovan Thomas
CHORAL ENSEMBLE
Young People’s Chorus of New York City
Artistic Director and Founder Francisco J. Núñez
Conductor Ahra Cho
Conductor Emma Sway
Assistant Conductor Jiabao Guo
CHORISTERS
Avery Bayani, Leo Bravo, Landon Chen, Chaitanya Dhall, Julien Jobson-Larkin, Suisei Nakamura,
Omario Napiza, Ugenio Napiza, Loic Nguyen, Maximilian Richert-Wang, Aarav Thum, William Xu