Hello From Bertha

By Tennessee Williams

Directed by Robert A. Zick, Jr.

at the Eureka
215 Jackson Street, San Francisco

September 24-October 20, 2002

Written between 1938 and 1941, Hello From Bertha is a character sketch of a dying prostitute and her co-horts set in the red-light district of East St. Louis. In a 1973 Playboy Magazine interview, Williams wrote: "I have a preoccupation at times with death and a preoccupation with sensuality– well, with a number of things. I wouldn’t say that death is my main theme. Loneliness is." In Hello From Bertha this 'preoccupation' is evident; Williams's early fascination with society’s misfits remained a predominant theme throughout his life. Hello From Bertha was penned following two tragic events in his life - the death of Hazel Kramer, his close childhood friend (and the woman he claimed was his one great female love), and the pre-frontal lobotomy of his sister Rose. Thus the reference to the ill-fated "Rose Kramer" in this play.