Summer and Smoke

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Play closed 25 November 2006

Apollo Theatre Shaftesbury Avenue, London

A major revival of Tennessee Williams' classic 1948 drama Summer and Smoke directed by Adrian Noble and starring Rosamund Pike and Chris Carmack.

Set in the small insular town of Glorious Hill, Mississippi, in America's Deep South during 1916, Summer and Smoke is a gripping story of smoldering attraction, miscommunication and repressed passion. It is here that Alma Winemiller, a proper young Southern belle, has long adored John, the charismatic but dissolute son of her neighbour and the town's respected doctor. As the drama unfolds in this tale of longing and unrequited love, lives are changed in a way that none of those involved could ever have predicted.

"Adrian Noble's luminous, sensitive and sharp production - highly recommended" The Independent

The cast features Rosamund Pike as 'Alma Winemiller' and Chris Carmack as 'John Buchanan Jr.' with Sebastian Abineri as 'Papa Gonzales', Michael Brown 'Dusty / Vernon / Archie Kramer', Angela Down 'Mrs Winemiller', David Killick 'Dr Buchanan', Tom Lawrence 'Roger Doremus', Kate O'Toole 'Mrs Bassett', Christopher Ravenscroft 'Rev Winemiller', Talulah Riley 'Nellie', Hanne Steen 'Rosa' and Hannah Stokely 'Pearl / Rosemary'. (Casting subject to change). Rosamund Pike was last seen on stage in London in Hitchcock Blonde for which she received outstanding critical acclaim, she also appeared in the film James Bond - Die Another Day. Chris Carmack is best known for his role as 'Luke' in the hit American television series The OC. He has recently appeared off Broadway in Entertaining Mr Sloane..

"Excellent acting... a production that is never less than absorbing" The Times

"Be honest with me. One time I said 'no' to something. You may remember the time, and all that demented howling from the cock-fight. But now I have changed my mind, or the girl who said 'no', she doesn't exist anymore, she died last summer - suffocated in smoke from something on fire inside her. No, she doesn't live now, but she left me her ring - You see? This one you admired, the topaz ring set in pearls... And she said to me when she slipped the ring on my finger - 'Remember I died empty-handed, and so make sure that your hands have something in them!" I said, 'But what about pride?' - She said, 'Forget about pride whenever it stands between you and what you must have!' And then I said, 'But what if he doesn't want me?' I don't know what she said then. I'm not sure whether she said anything or not - her lips stopped moving - yes, I think she stopped breathing."

"Powerfully moving" The Daily Telegraph

"Tennessee Williams heavy-handedly underlines the contrasting poles in his moral conflict... yet alongside strong narrative symmetries, a touching understated grief pervades... The later scenes in the doctor's surgery, when John's professionalism blurs with his yearning, are passionately charged and this play is certainly worth reviving." The Independent on Sunday

"The final scenes are superb" The Financial Times

"All of the building blocks of a great Williams play are here: the sultry setting of the Deep South; a tortured relationship; vast deserts of repression; and meaty slabs of self-destructive manhood. But Williams fails to whip these up into a tumult of passion and poetry, and by the end, as he dots and crosses every thematic 'i' and 't', it's just exhausting." The Sunday Telegraph

Tennessee Williams' Summer and Smoke was first performed in America at the Music Box theatre in Chicago in 1948. The play was then revived off Broadway. Summer and Smoke was first seen in the UK in 1951 when it was staged at The Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith. It was made into a film in 1961 starring Geraldine Page, Laurence Harvey and Rita Moreno which was nominated for four Academy Awards.