The Gnädiges Fräuline

By Tennessee Williams

at the Eureka
215 Jackson Street, San Francisco

September 24-October 20, 2002

First performed on a double bill with The Mutilated under the title Slapstick Tragedy in 1966. Williams called the period of his life in which this was written his 'stoned age.' Despite a stellar cast which included Margaret Leighton, Kate Reid and Zoe Caldwell, the first production closed shortly after opening – proving it too daring and outre for conservative Broadway sensibilities. Alan Schneider, the play's first director, called it "a surrealist romp about the position of the artist in our society." This bizarre mixture of the grotesque comic and the tragic is set on Florida's Cocaloony Key, and is replete with giant pelican-like birds, dope-smoking gossips, and a one-eyed Viennese singer, the Gnädiges Fräulein (German for "Blessed Virgin"), who can do a neat trick with a fish.