Details

In this sultry play of the Deep South, Baby Doll, the twenty-year-old innocent (or is she?) tears her older husband apart as his frustration grows when she attracts two men - husband Archie Lee and the much younger bronzed Sicilian cotton manager. Baby Doll is the play version of the 1956 film, and a radical reworking by Tennessee Williams of his short play '27 Wagons Full of Cotton', which was first produced in 1946, as part of his 'Mississippi Delta' collection - plays concerning the lives of people living, and working, in and around that particular area of the mighty river. Archie, a middle-aged, shady cotton gin owner burns down the mill of Silvia Vicarro, a rival in the cotton trade. Vicarro, who knows what happened but powerless to prove it, takes revenge by seducing Archie's child bride. Adding dramatically to the tension is the revelation that Archie, and Babydoll's, nuptial agreement states that the marriage can only be consummated on her twentieth birthday, which just happens to be three days away...

Cast/Performers

Rose Reynolds (Baby Doll), Ed Cooper Clarke (Silva Vaccaro), Owen Oakeshott (Archie Lee), Nicola Blackman (Ruby Lightfoot), Janet Henfrey (Aunt Rose Comfort), Matt Devereaux (Sherriff Coglan)

Creatives/Company

Author: Tennessee Williams
Company: Nuffield Theatre Company
Director: Patrick Sandford