Article: Ruthlessness reigns in twisted `Le Monde'

`Have pity on a broken and desperate soul," an anguished character named Mint pleads during "The Remarkable Rooming House of Madame Le Monde."

But pity is in short supply - make that nonexistent - in this provocative one-act play by Tennessee Williams. Billed as a world premiere, it was performed Friday and Saturday by Beau Jest Moving Theatre at the Charlestown Working Theater.

Written near the end of the playwright's life, "Madame Le Monde" represents a macabre, Grand Guignol-style iteration of a familiar Williams theme: namely, the terrible price the world often exacts from the weak and vulnerable. (One suspects the surname "Le Monde" reflects Williams's penchant for symbolic names.)

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