The Milk Train Should Stop Sooner

The first production of Tennessee Williams' The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here closed after 69 performances. The second closed after five. Though I admire the Roundabout Theatre Company's audacity in reviving this maligned play, I really wish they had chosen any other Williams instead.

On the surface, the synopsis is promising: the elderly Flora Goforth (Olympia Dukakis) is living out her last days on an Italian mountaintop while "writing a memoir" to avoid the inevitable. Trapped on the mountain with her is her assistant and ghost writer, Frances Black, whom Flora calls "Blackie" (Maggie Lacey). Their lives are suddenly interrupted by a tall, dark and handsome stranger, Christopher Flanders (Darren Pettie). All the elements of a genuine exploration into death and dying are there.

Unfortunately, Williams makes his point early on, and then just repeats it again and again for a whole two hours and twenty minutes. We get a sense of Flora's former life and her current insecurities about death through the rambling stories she dictates to Blackie. Flora was a debutante type with many suitors, but alas there was one who got away. Now we watch her struggle against loneliness armed with only two servants and Blackie. Dukakis channels Flora well, acting like a diva who is doing anything to distract herself from death. So when Christopher first shows up, he seems like a possibly fun distraction. Pettie, who also plays the closeted Lee Garner Jr. on Mad Men, knows how to use his body to his advantage. A mobile artist, Chris goes around Europe crashing with wealthy patrons who appreciate his company in their twilight days. Indeed, many such patrons have died in This has earned him the nickname "The Angel of Death."

While some attempt at a profound conversation about death ensues, it's hard to look past the web of cliches. For instance, no sooner does Christopher arrive then he starts seducing Blackie. Flora, naturally, gets jealous, and tries to shoo the Angel of Death off her property. Williams tries to make this segue into a heated exchange where the characters let their masks down and show the audience their views on death. To Chris, death is nothing to be afraid of. His job is to ease his patrons to comfortably let go. But to Flora, death is something to be ignored. However, the characters are too thinly drawn to let us buy in to any of their emotions. While Flora says she has loved and lost, she doesn't reveal what she is truly afraid of. We certainly do not sympathize with a wealthy lady who has appeared to lived a rich life. Either Williams or the director, Michael Wilson, has given Flora too much bravada and not enough vulnerability. Similarly, it's a mystery why Chris is there in the first place. Should we trust his message because he looks so good without a shirt and is an artist, or should we be suspicious of him because he admits to bumming off old folks? I blame the director for having failed to ask Pettie to pick one side. The most annoying character of all is Blackie. She seems to have no purpose except to show how stifling life on the mountain has become.

Halfway through the play, it becomes quite obvious how it will end - with death--what else? But even this is dragged on for an eternity. Wilson should have eliminated some of the long glances between the characters. Or better yet, he probably could have adapted the play to end it at any one of several good options before Williams' chosen ending.

Written in 1963, twenty years before Williams' death, I can't forgive him for being an old man contemplating death. Perhaps we can just write off The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore as what happens when starts resting on the laurels of past achievement.