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RESIDENT
SUMMER AND SMOKE
(HARTFORD STAGE; 489 SEATS; $57 TOP)
HARTFORD, Conn. A Hartford Stage presentation in association with Paper Mill Playhouse of a play in two acts by Tennessee Williams. Directed by Michael Wilson. Sets, Tony Straiges; costumes, David C. Woolard; lighting, Rui Rita; original music and sound, John Gromada; choreography, Peter Pucci; voice and dialect coach, Deborah Dallas Cooney; fight direction, Mark Olsen; production stage manager, Elizabeth Moloney. Opened Sept. 8, 2006. Reviewed Sept. 17. Running time: 2 HOURS, 35 MIN.
Alma Winemiller ........ Amanda Plummer
John Buchanan Jr. .............. Marc Kudisch
Rev. Winemiller .................. Terry Beaver
Mrs. Winemiller ............ Jennifer Harmon
Dr. Buchanan Sr. .................... Nafe Katter
Rosa Gonzales .............. Stephanie Beatriz
Nellie Ewell ........................ Marta Reiman
Mrs. Bassett ................ Johanna Morrison
Rosemary, Pearl ........ Elizabeth Capinera
Roger Doremus ............................ Bill Kux
Vernon .......................................... John Ort
Papa Gonzales ...................... Mateo Gomez
Archie Kramer, Dusty ...... Curtis Billings
Loneliness, as much as love and desire, is a key theme in Tennessee Williams' work. So it feels especially insightful that one of the many subtle strokes of Michael Wilson's impeccably acted Hartford Stage production of "Summer and Smoke" is the relative isolation of its polar-opposite main characters. Alma and John seem suspended like defiantly individual satellites in the outer orbits of their families, their respective suitors and seductresses, and the small-minded gossips who populate Glorious Hill, Miss. That sense of solitude, even in...