Darlings, Have You Heard About "Spring Storm?"

No, girls, I am not talking about "Spring Awakening," that overrated excuse for a musical that had the temerity to win the TONY Award several years back, because the geezers on the nominating committee wanted to show how allegedly hip they could be. I am talking about a 1937 play Tennessee Williams wrote in a playwriting class in Iowa, and, honey, I want to tell you, like all of Tennessee Williams' plays, it has everything--including a role that was designed for ME!!!!!!

"Spring Storm" is set in Port Tyler, Mississippi, during April of 1937. Its original title, taken from T.S. Eliot, was "April Is The Cruelest Month," which I can tell you from personal experience it certainly IS!!!!!!!!!!!

We have Dick Miller, a low class soda jerk from the wrong side of the tracks (and an antecedent of Stanley Kowalski) who wants to leave town and go into construction. Uh huh!!!!!!!!!

Then there is Heavenly Critchfield. Her family was at one point the wealthiest in the town--like mine on the North Side--but are now living on a past reputation, since the Depression drained them of all resources. Heavenly, who is pretty (I could play this, but this is not MY role!!!!!!!!!) lusts after Dick (honey, who doesn't????) and even loses her virtue to him!!!!!!! Gasp!!!!!! She is like the Janice Gonnella of her community!!!!!!! Her aunt Lila is a spinster with regrets, who wants Heavenly to find happiness. Her mother, Esmerelda, and father, Oliver, ill with stomach cancer, want her to marry Arthur Shannon, who comes from a similar aristocratic background. Now, Arthur sounds like me, but with a difference--he is considered Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Heterosexual!!!!!!!!! Excuse me???????? That last is something, mercifully you can NEVER call me!!!!!!! And this is Tennessee Williams, honey, so how can he be anything but homosexual. Especially when he was persecuted as a child by both Dick and Heavenly, for being studious, interested in books and literature, and so traumatized by it he was sent to school in England!!!!!!!! Now, that COULD be me, but wait.

The piece de resistance is Hertha Neilson who is--are you ready????? GASP!!!!!!!--a sexually repressed LIBRARIAN!!!!!!!!!! Honey, let me tell you, I am ready to play this RIGHT NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Hertha pines for Arthur, who rebuffs her, she runs into the storm, ending up at the freight yards, where she is struck down by a train, either in suicide, or murdered by Dick and Heavenly, who were allegedly driving the engine!!!!!!!!!

Honey, you can't beat THIS!!!!!!! Bring on Hertha; I am ready to play her!!!!! This is just like my early years in Highland Park. Fuck you again, Gloria Shapiro!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

"Spring Storm" is a Tennessee Williams bitchfest that indicts small town America!!!!!!!!! How can we not love it, darlings?????? So, feast your eyes on it, and see what all the fuss is about!!!!!!!!!!!!!

April is heating up, once you read this, girls!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!