Suddenly, Last Summer

Suddenly, Last Summer has everything you want in a Tennessee Williams play: a ghoulishly overbearing mother, sycophantic relatives jockeying for an inheritance, and a monstrous homosexual at the center of it all. Why, then, is this play so unsatisfying? It could be that Williams jams too much tawdry melodrama into a one-act play. It could also be the wild, absurd death of ne’er-do-well playboy Sebastian Venable the summer before the play begins. Or it might be the unsatisfying ending. Directed by Geoff Leatham, Epic’s functional staging is short on frills but features excellent performances from Becky Minard as Sebastian’s grotesque mom and Betsy Rinaldi as his damaged cousin, two women fighting for control of Sebastian’s public image.