Suddenly Last Summer - help please

[RentBoy86]

Posted: 3/20/06 at 12:52am

I just got done reading the play, but I feel sort of lost. Can someone explain to me the ending. What exactly happend to Sebastian? I know he dies, but why did the children kill him?

[RentBoy86]

Posted: 3/20/06 at 1:02am

has no one read the play?

[sicetergo]

Posted: 3/20/06 at 3:18am

He's eaten by the young men that he's been attempting to procure through Catherine - they tear him apart with the metals parts of their musical instruments. There is a sense that Sebastian gives himself up as a sort of sacrifice to an angry god...

[sfboy20]

Posted: 3/20/06 at 3:24am

sicetergo pretty much has it correct. I directed a production of the play approx. 5 years ago.

So, if you've any more questions I'd be happy to help you out.

[PottstownTeacher]

Posted: 3/20/06 at 11:11am

I love that play! That was the first scene I ever directed ... Directing I at West Chester University! Bob Byntnar was the professor. Then for Directing II we did scenes from VIRGINIA WOOLF! Freakin' awesome! I actually got to see a production of SUDDENLY LAST SUMMER when it was on Broadway with Elizabeth Ashley and Jordan Baker (stealing the show as Catherine). I love it! OK, so this was not the point of the thread, but you all need to know ... it's always about me!

Posted: 3/20/06 at 1:08pm

Somewhat threadjacking here, but I'm curious to know: has anyone ever seen it and thought that Catherine was insane and that it didn't really happen that way? My first introduction to it was via the movie with Natasha Richardson, and there was no doubt in my mind about it, but I saw a mounting here recently and it felt like it was directed to be deliberatley (sp?) more ambiguous.

[RentBoy86]

Posted: 3/20/06 at 1:10pm

Okay, I think I understand it. So, Sebastian uses his mother & cousin for bait to attract the children. He takes the children and uses them for sexual favors. Then, feeling guilty, he gives himself up to them and they eat/devour him and tear him apart. ?

[philcrosby]

Posted: 3/20/06 at 1:41pm

Like all of Williams work, there is certainly something mythic in his writing. But I think it is fairly clear that Catherine is relating the facts as she saw them -- or believes she saw them. The mother wants her lobotomized to stop talking about such disgusting things and ruining her own private memories of Sebastian.

Sebastian desire and relationships for underage boys is certainly harder to garner sympathy for in this day and age. But the play is riveting nonetheless, and provides amazing acting roles for all involved.

[children&art]

Posted: 3/20/06 at 1:47pm

i think there is a very good case for an alternate reading that Catherine really didnt see what she talks about, sort of a more over the edge Maggie the Cat - when she finds out about Sebastian's homosexuality it just drives her into insanity and what she thinks happened is what she would have liked to have happened.

[sicetergo]

Posted: 3/20/06 at 1:48pm

I don't know if Sebastian feels guilt exactly - although that's not to say it's not one interpretation - he certainly makes a conscious decision to climb the hill rather than run to the safety of the dock - why? My feeling has always been, that he is aware of his mortality and throws himself to the "wolves" of Cabeza de Lobos as a sacrifice or form of martyrdom. The play revolves around the idea of the ways in which human beings use one another - "We all use each other and that’s what we think of as love." And maybe Sebastian tries to break that cycle throwing himself on the very boys off whom he has been feeding.

It's a fascinating play, which obviously draws upon Williams' guilt regarding his sister Rose, who was not as lucky as Catherine and who did go through a lobotomy.

[sfboy20]

Posted: 3/20/06 at 1:49pm

no. not guilt.

this is, to some degree, subject to interprestation just as catherine insanity is also.

in my view, the sebastian that allows himself to be eaten alive by the boys, after a long chase, is the same sebastian that watched the baby turtles killed by the "black birds of the galapagos", as they "dived and swooped to attack."

venable talks of sebastian obsession with such events as an onsession with some unmerciful god, that welcomed sacrifice.

then, perhaps, after sebastian reached a dead-end in the road and was run down my boys, he recognized that it was his turn for the sacrifice. in addition, he had a heart condition, making him even weaker on the, er, food chain.

so, i don't think it was guilt. this isn't a morality tale williams' is telling, especially since catherine probably will get the labotomy. (so much so that the film had to have Katherine Hepburn go crazy at the end so that the viewers were saved from Elizabeth Taylor get a labotomy.)

p.s. catherine sanity is open for interpretation, but is ALWAYS more theatrically interesting to take a person insanity as pure sanity, i.e. hamlet and the ghost - indeed shakespeare gives hamlet another eyewitness. for instance, what stakes are there in catherine telling the story, especially the portions which accuse venable of procuring for him, if none of it happened? if is the truth that venable doesn't want to come out, then there are stakes and things for venable to play; the other way its all blabber and boring.

[sicetergo]

Posted: 3/20/06 at 2:35pm

I think when we first meet Catherine she is in trauma - rather than insane - well, wouldn't you be if you'd seen someone you loved eaten alive?....But obviously the story is so horrifying, she must be mad, whereas Violet, is given authority and control because of her position.

I certainly don't think that Catherine has the lobotomy at the end, because the fight over the balance power is won by Catherine.




Updated On: 3/20/06 at 02:35 PM

[tomwing]

Posted: 3/21/06 at 7:05pm

And of course there's an intence political level.

How free is one to express his opinion when opposing to what's thought to be politically correct?

What's politically correct?

And finally is Mrs Venable really guilty because she struggles to preserve the beauty of her memories of sebastian?

And is Katherine innocent just beacause she holds the truth?

For me in "Suddenly" Williams makes a note on Blanche DuBois' "I don't want realism, I want magic"

[cturtle]

Posted: 3/21/06 at 10:19pm

i always thought the end was very surreal. but i never thought about the possibility that it DIDN'T happen. interesting! i've only seen the movie, not the play, although i've read the play. but it's hard for me NOT to imagine the movie when i read the play. i must read it again and leave myself open to my imagination ...