The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore

A play by Tennessee Williams. A play that looks at the final two days in the life of ageing beauty, Flora “Sissy” Goforth, the much-married, now-widowed millionaires, whose last exotic summer is consumed with an effort to dictate her memoirs before she expires – a Mediterranean summer disturbingly interrupted by the appearance of a handsome young poet, known to play companion to wealthy old women as they near death.

The first version opened at the Festival dei Due Mondi in Spoleto, Italy, in July 1962, and in January 1963 at the Morosco Theatre in New York. After generally poor reviews, the plays was revised and re-mounted in January 1964 at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre under the direction of Tony Richardson and starring Tallulah Bankhead and Tab Hunter, with Marian Seldes. It ran only 5 performances after again receiving very poor notices. Published by Secker & Warburg, 1964.

Filmed in 1968 under the title Boom!, starring Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton and Noël Coward, and directed by Joseph Losey.

South African productions

In 2013 Artscape and Abrahamse and Meyer Productions presented a production directed and designed byt Fred Abrahamse, with Jennifer Steyn, Marcel Meyer, Chris Flanders, Roelof Storm and Nicholas Dallas. The production premiered in the USA, the company having been invited for a return engagement of their 2012 success Kingdom of Earth at the 8th Provincetown Tennessee Williams Theatre Festival (2013). The company began its 2013 US tour with a season at the Provincetown Theatre, before appearing at the festival. At the festival it played the production in repertory with their 2012 production. They returned to Cape Town to do the play from 4 to 20 October at the Artscape Arena.

Translations and adaptations

Translated into Afrikaans by Saartjie Botha entitled Die Melktrein Stop Nie Meer Hier Nie. Presented at the Woordfees 2013, starring Antoinette Kellermann as Flora Goforth.

Sources

www.artscape.co.za

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Milk_Train_Doesn't_Stop_Here_Anymore

Beeld 9 March 2013.