Cameras never lie, revealing the dark heart of Tennessee Williams’ truth drama.

Drama Theatre, Sydney Opera House
February 13, 2015

This 90 minute, one-act play opened off-Broadway in 1958 in a double bill with the 30-minute curtain-raiser, Something Unspoken. Both are underpinned by the physical absence and silence around a major taboo: homosexuality. The second play’s title is the love between two women, together 15 years as “employer” and “personal assistant and secretary” – labels seen on many famous closets.

Similarly obscured, by his doting mother Violet (Robyn Nevin), is the shocking death “suddenly last summer” – think Pier Paolo Pasolini – when Sebastian Venable, travelling in Italy with cousin Catherine (Eryn Jean Norvill) was murdered by rent boys. Violet is so determined to obliterate Catherine’s memory that she’s moved to barbarity: seeking to have Catherine lobotomised by Dr Cukrowicz (Mark Leonard Winter). He, however, first administers the “truth” drug Pentothal and achieves the opposite of what Mrs Venable requires.

The double bill, first titled Garden District, is set in that part of New Orleans. And Suddenly Last Summer takes place in the lush gardens of the Venable mansion...