The Milk Train Doesn’t Stop Here Anymore review – a sour night

Some plays are rarely performed for a reason. Tennessee Williams’ dreary tale of an ailing widow has historically been plagued by bad reviews, from its original 1962 production in Italy to its unlucky Broadway opening and an unfortunate attempt at a starry-cast film. This revival directed by Robert Chevara is unlikely to change that legacy.

The cast and crew are not entirely to blame. On the Amalfi coast, dying but spritely Flora “Sissy” Goforth (Linda Marlowe) is inefficiently dictating her memoirs to her put-upon assistant. They’re interrupted by a young poet with the nickname Angel of Death (Sanee Raval), who barges in and stakes a claim to Sissy’s final days. Williams wrote this play a year before his partner died of cancer, but if this story is an allegory for the complexities of grief or an unpicking of mortality, its message is well hidden. The plot is flat and empty of sentiment, with uncertain relationships that invite little investigation.

The dry script is not improved by the sparse set or unconfident staging. On a traverse stage, much of the dialogue is conducted with everyone standing around uncomfortably. The story is pulled disjointedly into the modern day, with key characters fidgeting with their phones in ways that jar with their speech. But overriding it all is a sense of aimlessness. Raval spends the show gliding around unutterably slowly and speaking with an unexplained intensity, arguing in circles with Sissy who, ridiculously, wears heels throughout, despite being on her deathbed in the Italian mountains at the height of summer.

The Milk Train Doesn’t Stop Here Anymore gives older women leading roles with their desires placed centre stage. But the play has an air of distaste for each of its characters. With none of them being loved or lovable, all talk of sex and marriage becomes a strangely flat affair. Sara Kestelman gives the most assured performance as the visiting Witch of Capri, a flirty, alluring character, but her presence is confined to a handful of scenes, so her skill is largely wasted. In its best moments, this feels like an early draft of Taylor Jenkins Reid’s The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, with a woman recounting her glamorous affairs and contemplating the end of her life. But where that has style, this gets stuck, unmoving and ungraceful.

• At Charing Cross theatre, London, until 22 October

  • This article was amended on 5 October 2022 to correct the spelling of Sanee Raval’s name.