Tennessee Laughter

Even without a program, theatergoers would have had no trouble figuring out where they were. The scene was clearly the familiar slum section of Williamsburg, Tenn., with its long rows of dusty souls and crumbling emotions tilting crazily against a dusky sky. But there had been changes. In Period of Adjustment, which opened last week at Miami's Coconut Grove Playhouse, Playwright Tennessee Williams repaired no cracking masonry in his familiar dramatic neighborhood, but at least he slapped on a coat of whitewash.

Billed as a "Serious Comedy," Period sounds more like a mad gothic anecdote. A couple of newly weds (Robert Webber and Barbara Baxley) drive up in a secondhand funeral limousine to the home of the groom's wartime buddy (James Daly). Left alone with the buddy, the bride ruefully sums up the first 36 hours of life with hubby: he shakes with an uncontrollable psychosomatic tremor, drinks incessantly "to keep warm," on their wedding night leaped at her like a satyr, frightening her so much she spent the whole night sitting up in a chair.

A mere nothing compared to the buddy's own troubles. He, it seems, married a snaggle-toothed bag to secure his position in her father's firm, but she left him, and, even worse, the old tightwad gave him only one raise in six years. Eventually their respective spouses return, and after a helpful exchange of advice, the couples retire to patch up their differences in classic fashion. "Honey," pleads the patient buddy just before the final curtain, "please don't put that Vicks Vapo Rub on your chest."

Perhaps significantly, the grimly bizarre comedy is Williams' first play to be produced since he abandoned his well-advertised long-term lease on the psychiatrist's couch. Upbeat only in comparison to his other plays, Period nevertheless glows with several scenes of gentle, off-focus humor, as when the two men boozily dream of raising buffalo (a "dignified beast") to rent out to producers of TV westerns. And if the play was a surprise to Miami theatergoers (who may be the only ones to see it; Williams is still undecided about taking it to Broadway), in its own way it was a revelation to the author. For the first time Playwright Williams decided to take a crack at directing his own work, gave up the reins midway through rehearsals when he concluded sadly: "I can't direct my way out of a paper bag."

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