An Evening with Tennessee

Last week, over 50 pupils from Fifth Year to Upper Sixth, all arriving in an eclectic array of character costumes, gathered in the Wilberforce Hall, transformed to a stage of ‘lurid nocturnal brilliance’, for an immersive evening inspired by the playwright, Tennessee Williams, whose plays A Streetcar Named Desire and The Glass Menagerie are studied at A Level English and drama respectively. This fabulous event saw Caterham pupils performing live jazz, enacting scenes of the plays and even playing poker with rowdy eruptions to create the atmosphere of melting-pot, vibrant New Orleans shifting to the poignant, sinister and tragic experiences of the plays’ characters. Pupils were intellectually challenged by short lectures by visiting speaker, Jed Pietersen, on America’s identity in 1947 and Dr. Emily Gray on the influence of Expressionism in Williams’ development of New Plastic Theatre, plus a talk with accompanying performance from Upper Sixth pupil and Senior Literature Society President, Sanjana, on the play she has written inspired by Williams’s style – an inspiration in itself of what our pupils can push themselves to achieve.

A huge thank you to all the pupils and staff involved in making this such a successful evening: this really was an event that expresses the spirit of the life which goes on here.