Joan van Ark, Jean LeClerc and Victor Love leave the fantasy world of Tennessee Williams' Camino Real July 23, when the revival of the fantasia about dreamers, lovers and drifters ends its run at The Shakespeare Theatre in Washington DC.
Camino Real began previews May 30 and opened June 4.
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Challenging, poetic and thick with images, Camino Real (1953) mixes literary and cultural types -- Casanova, Don Quixote, Byron, Shelley, Kilroy -- in Williams' strange world of Mexican plazas and hotels at the edge of the world, a place he said was pronounced "cammino reel."
Michael Kahn directs Love as Kilroy, Tess Auberjonois as virginal Esmerelda (from "The Hunchback of Notre Dame"), TV's van Ark ("Knots Landing") as Marguerite Gautier, who falls for Casanova (soap star LeClerc). Van Ark, though known for her TV soaps, is a Broadway vet from Barefoot in the Park, The Rules of the Game and The School For Wives (which earned her a Tony Award nomination).
LeClerc is known for TV's "All My Children" and "Loving" and succeeded Frank Langella in Broadway's 1979 revival of Dracula.
The company includes Philip Godwin (Don Quixote and Lord Byron), Franchelle Stewart Dorn (Gypsy Mother), David Sabin (Gutman), Sheila Allen (patron saint of lost souls), Floyd King (Baron de Charlus), Ralph Cosham and Catherine Flye (Lord and Lady Mulligan), Eric Hoffman (Sancho Panza), Todd Bailey, Ann Ducati, Helen Hedman, Naomi Jacobson, Marty Lodge and Lawrence Redmond.
Designers of the carnival-like world (a plaza flanked by two hotels, the Ritz Men Only and the Siete Mares) are Derek McLane (set), Russell Champa (lighting) and Murell Horton (costumes).
Tickets are $14-$58. The Shakespeare Theatre is at 450 7th Street NW. For information, call (202) 547-1122 or try the web site at www.shakespearedc.org.
-- By Kenneth Jones
