By Christopher Cappiello

Fountain Theatre casts Belle Aire in Tennessee Williams rarity

“I feel like even a B or B+ play of Tennessee’s is far superior to so many plays we see written nowadays,” director Simon Levy says with enthusiasm as he talks about staging Tennessee Williams’ rarely performed drama The Milk Train Doesn’t Stop Here Anymore at the Fountain Theatre.

The play lasted only 69 performances in its 1963 Broadway debut, and Gore Vidal’s film adaptation—retitled Boom!—is one of the more deliciously disastrous late-’60s vehicles for Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton.

Milk Train is a highly theatrical meditation on life and death, as the grand, old, eccentric—and exceedingly rich—Flora Goforth dictates her memoirs in her Italian villa on the Amalfi Coast, presumably waiting to die. In typical Williams fashion, the arrival of a mysterious, and attractive stranger (is he the angel of death?) sets events on a crash course toward a dramatic conclusion.

Milk Train is the first play Williams wrote following the 1961 death of his longtime lover, Frank Merlo. During Merlo’s battle with lung cancer, Williams refused to visit him in the hospital, and allegedly carried on affairs while the love of his life was dying in the next room.

“Tennessee was feeling terribly guilty about the way he behaved when Frank died,” Levy says. “I think that is what Milk Train is about. I think it’s a cri de coeur; it’s Tennessee really trying to come to terms not only with issues of death, but with issues of life.”

The play includes one of Williams’ most theatrical characters, Flora’s longtime friend and dining companion, simply called the Witch of Capri. For the Fountain Theatre production, Levy has cast Scott Presley—known to Angelenos for his drag persona, Belle Aire—as the Witch.

The director first saw Presley as Belle Aire at a bingo fundraising event for the Fountain four or five years ago. “I just remember being so incredibly impressed with his ease at being Belle Aire. There was this incredibly natural transformation,” he says.

Levy, who has earned a reputation as one of the premier interpreters of William’s work, sees the casting of a man as the Witch as much more than a gimmick.

“The issue of sexual ambiguity, this issue of the male and the female, it’s rampant in Tennessee’s work—it’s this thing he’s constantly exploring,” he says. “I thought, this character needs to be played by a man to capture that element of Tennessee’s life and put it into this play.”

Levy emphasizes that Presley is playing a woman, not a man in drag. “If we do it well, hopefully for the first few beats, people will go, ‘Is that a man or a woman?’” he says, laughing. “If we can pull that off in a wonderful kind of way, I will be just thrilled.”

Actress Karen Kondazian reunites with Levy to play Flora. The two have collaborated on many award-winning productions, including several Williams plays and, most recently, the Maria Callas drama, Master Class. With its Williams pedigree and tour de force female role, Milk Train is a natural fit for both of them.

Just a few days before previews are to begin, Levy seems most excited to have the chance to stage such a rarely seen work by the great American playwright.

“Part of doing this is just the gift of being able to give it to the community,” he says. “Especially for so many of us who love Tennessee’s work, to be able to have the opportunity to see a play that maybe in your lifetime you won’t get another chance to see.”

The Milk Train Doesn’t Stop Here Anymore runs through Nov. 4 at the Fountain Theatre, 5060 Fountain Ave., L.A. For tickets and more information, visit www.fountaintheatre.com.