Ten Blocks on the Camino Real: Not Enough Reality

Before Tennessee Williams completed his hallucinatory epic Camino Real, he presented an incomplete version called Ten Blocks on the Camino Real, (which was also filmed under that title) which was filmed at the time. Although somewhat inferior to the later work, Target Margin Theater Company takes on the challenge of producing the fragmented historical document and enhancing it with surreal design and direction elements of their own.
The Camino Real (pronounced Anglophonically) is a waystation for those lost souls of history and fiction who were and still are afraid to move forward in their lives- Marguerite Gautier (from La Dame aux Camellias), Jacques Casanova, The Baron de Charlus (From Proust's À la Recherche du Temps Perdu), Esmeralda (an allusion to the Gypsy from Hunchback of Notre Dame)- most of them living in the swanky Siete Mares hotel or scrabbling in the streets. Into this mess comes Kilroy (of the classic "Kilroy was Here" graffiti), an American boxer. There is a large number of characters in the play, and Davis Herskovits represents them all with only 6 actors (Purva Bedi, Satya Bhabha, Curt Hostetter, McKenna Kerrigan, Dara Seitzman, and Raphael Nash Thompson), occasionally drawing intriguing parallels as they double (e.g. Marguerite, a courtesan, doubling as Rosita, a whore - Esmeralda, who seduces Kilroy, doubling as The Baron, who attempts same but is only met with confusion); other times the doubling is merely confusing, further muddied by the fact that some of the actors are better at defining their separate characters than others.
Even more confusing is the layering of various surreal elements into the piece- the play is dreamlike and bizarre to begin with (Williams was aspiring to the avant-garde), but this production tends toward tedious incoherence at times. Some of the visuals are very interesting, but it's when the pace slows down and characters are allowed to act a real scene (e.g. between Kilroy and Esmeralda), that there is a glimmer or two of Tennessee Williams amidst all the frippery.
Scenic and Lighting design by Lenore Doxsee is beautiful, making use of the entire Ohio Theater space to give a sense of depth.  Sound (by David Rosenmeyer, Jim "Sneaky" Breitmeier, and Will Fulton (and some played live by Dara Seitzman)) is frequently distracting or too loud to hear the actors over.
It's a strange and incomplete piece, which may be of interest to scholars of Tennessee Williams or fans of this peculiar sort of theatrical style.

Ten Blocks on the Camino Real
By Tennessee Williams

Target Margin Theater Company

January 14-31
Wednesdays - Fridays at 8, Saturdays at 4 & 8, Sundays at 7.
Special Benefit Performance January 21st at 7, and added performance Monday January 26th at 7.
Tickets $20 available from OvationTix at 212-352-3101 or toll free at 866-811-4111

The Ohio Theatre
66 Wooster St.

www.targetmargin.org

 

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