There’s something thrilling about walking into a room that feels like a memory. At the Old Fitz, Three (Short) Plays conjures not just the ghosts of Tennessee Williams’ forgotten characters, but the crackling static of a radio half-tuned to longing.
The space is intimate, like we’ve all stumbled into a family’s front porch at dusk. We aren’t just audience members here; we are witnesses. And in a world that moves just a little too fast, this debut production by Ground Floor Theatre Company dares to slow down, dig deep, and make us feel. This production announces its arrival with ambition and bite.
Tennessee Williams may be most famous for A Streetcar Named Desire and The Glass Menagerie, but the one-act plays of his early career are where his unfiltered brilliance simmers. Three (Short) Plays showcases At Liberty, Auto-Da-Fé, and This Property is Condemned, lesser-known works described by Williams himself as “firecrackers on a rope.”
Each play stands alone, but together they feel like a triangular painting of loneliness and yearning. In At Liberty, an ex-vaudeville performer returns to her mother’s home, chasing glory long since passed. Auto-Da-Fé presents a young man caught in the suffocating pull between his sexuality and his oppressive home life.
And This Property is Condemned ends the evening with a haunting tale of childhood innocence crushed by poverty and abandonment. It’s Tennessee Williams distilled: wounded youth, unspoken truths, and the hope that someone might still be listening.
What’s immediately striking is the cast’s seamless ability to shift between these deeply different roles. Helena Cielak is luminous and tragic as both Gloria and Willie – bringing a frenetic, childlike energy to one and a crumbling defiance to the other.
Will Manton gives a delicate, restrained performance as Eloi, and later as Tom, tapping into the emotional restraint that characterises so many of Williams’ tortured men. Emma Wright is captivating in both of her motherly roles, offering a brittle dignity that cuts through the silence.
Megan Sampson’s direction is crisp, patient, and unafraid of stillness. She lets the weight of Williams’ language do its work, allowing characters to unravel slowly, often in silence, often in shadow.
The decision to run all three plays with the same ensemble cast pays off. There’s a rich emotional through-line created as we watch these actors transform, always reaching for something just out of grasp.
Topaz Marlay-Cole’s lighting design is sparse but sculptural, creating pockets of warmth and cold that frame each scene like a painting. Maddy Briggs’ sound design is subtly arresting – the distant whistle of a train, a warped jazz record, and the soft buzz of electricity all lend texture to the production’s Southern Gothic atmosphere.
The set is suggestive rather than literal, with chairs and ladders rearranged like puzzle pieces. It’s a world on the verge of falling apart, and the actors move through it like memories made flesh.
This is theatre that trusts its audience. It doesn’t spoon-feed, nor does it apologise for its quiet intensity. Three (Short) Plays isn’t flashy, and it doesn’t want to be. It’s evocative, intimate, and deeply human, a fitting tribute to Williams’ one-act gems and a bold opening statement from a new company unafraid to dwell in the raw and the real.
A poetic slow burn of aching youth and quiet devastation, Three (Short) Plays is a small triumph. It’s a show for anyone who’s ever looked back and wondered what could have been. Absolutely worth your time.
Ground Floor Theatre Company presentsThree (Short) Plays by Tennessee Williams. Running to 15 August at Old Fitz Theatre, 129 Dowling Street Woolloomooloo, NSW 2011.
Tickets: https://www.oldfitztheatre.com.au/book-now
Website: https://www.oldfitztheatre.com.au/three-plays-by-tennessee-williams
Socials: https://www.instagram.com/oldfitztheatre/
Socials: https://www.instagram.com/groundfloortheatreco/
Photo credits: Robert Miniter
