The Adobe Theater brings Tennessee Williams' 'Small Craft Warnings' to stage

Lorri Oliver gave a single word answer to describe “Small Craft Warnings.”

“Life.”

The play will be brought to The Adobe Theater stage from Friday, Aug. 1, through Sunday, Aug. 17.

“Small Craft Warnings” is a play about “love, but it is mostly a play about loneliness, fear of abandonment, and despite everything, fear of getting attached,” according to the theater.

“It’s about people trying to get by and trying to survive,” Pete Parkin, show director, said. “And all these people are just really living on the edge.”

“Small Craft Warnings” was written by Tennessee Williams, and according to Philip J. Shortell, who plays Doc, is less popular but still needs to be shown.

“I think this theater has an obligation … to produce lesser-known works and original works from local people,” Shortell said. “And this is one of those things where I think it’s part of our duty to trot this particular piece out.”

The play contains foul language and homophobic scenes.

“I would not bring children to this play. There’s some spicy things that happen, and some sexual situations that happen, and some of the words,” Oliver, who plays Leona, said. “I mean, I don’t even use some of the words, and I can swear with the best of them like a sailor.”

Even with some of the unsavory scenes and language, Oliver says she hopes people will understand the characters’ situations.

“I’m hoping, with some of the language in it, that rather than being offended, people will maybe realize that they’re glad that most of us are trying to move past some of the situations in the play,” Oliver said.

The play features a multitude of monologues. Each character has scenes with other actors and a scene where they speak solo, according to Shortell.

“They all have monologues where they kind of reveal their true selves, or the way they feel about their true selves. And it struck me that when Doc does his monologues, he’s not drunk,” Shortell said. “He’s speaking to himself. And so he comes out and the dialogue is actually different than the lines he speaks as a drunk.”

Shortell says he saw this as two versions of Doc, who he was meant to be and who he is, and this crafted how he acted as Doc when interacting with other actors versus when delivering his monologue.

Parkin says the other actors picked up this way of acting, with scenes between actors and monologues being handled differently.

“I got some of the best actors in Albuquerque in the play. And there’s a couple of people new to me,” Parkin said. “But a lot of them are people that I’ve worked with before, and they’re very good actors, and they’re doing very well with it.”

Oliver says that people should attend the show because they will connect with it.

“Maybe, they’ll see a little bit of themselves, but magnified, and I hope that they’ll come and find some human understanding of just watching,” Oliver said. “I think it’s easier for us to watch people be in pain when we know that it’s not real.”

The Adobe Theater brings Tennessee Williams' 'Small Craft Warnings' to stage