When Tennessee Williams wrote Suddenly Last Summer in 1957 he described it as" a kind of catharsis, a final fling at violence"; and the story of a mother who will stop at nothing to protect the memory of her dead son is indeed one of Williams's bleakest visions. In the first of this major new season of studio drama, Maggie Smith plays Mrs Venable , whose grief at the loss of her beloved poet son Sebastian turns to rage against her niece Catharine (Natasha Richardson ), his last companion and witness of his gruesome death. Determined to erase the memory of Sebastian's loss, she tries to persuade her pet doctor (Rob Lowe) to perform a lobotomy on Catharine.