Camino Real [Paperback]

Tennessee Williams (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1970

The acclaimed classic in a new edition, now with a new introduction, the author's original foreword and afterword, the one-act play 10 Blocks on the Camino Real, plus an essay by noted Tennessee Williams scholar, Michael Paller.

In this phantasmagorical play, the Camino Real (pronounciation: Cá-mino Réal) is a long highway, a dead end, a police state in a vaguely Latin American country, a nightmare, and an inescapable condition. Characters from history and literature—Don Quixote, Casanova, Camille, Lord Byron—inhabit a place where corruption, starvation, indifference and greed have immobilized anyone who tries to escape. Then, into this netherworld, the archetypal Kilroy arrives—a sailor and all-American guy with "a heart as big as the head of baby." Like others before him in the Camino Real, Kilroy is robbed, conned, turned into a patsy, and he very nearly breaks...but not quite. When this experimental epic opened on Broadway in 1953, it confounded the critics, but not the audiences. The play's iconic/ironic humor, playful conceits, and towering concerns about society's demand for conformity, the courage of the artist, and the power of compassion have made it a classic.

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Tennessee Williams (1911-1983) is one of the most acclaimed playwrights of the twentieth century. New Directions publishes his letters, short stories, poems, fiction, memoir, essays and over sixty of his plays including The Glass Menagerie, A Streetcar Named Desire, Camino Real, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Orpheus Descending, and The Night of the Iguana. John Guare is the New York Drama Critics Circle and Tony Award-winning author of The House of Blue Leaves, Six Degrees of Separation, Lake Hollywood, and the librettos for the Broadway musicals Two Gentlemen of Verona and Sweet Smell of Success, as well as the screenplay for Atlantic City. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 161 pages
• Publisher: New Directions Publishing Corporation; 1 edition (January 1970)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0811202186
• ISBN-13: 978-0811202183
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.2 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,767,489 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Tennessee Williams (1911-1983), one of the 20th century's most superb writers, was also one of its most successful and prolific. His classic works include Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, A Streetcar Named Desire, The Glass Menagerie, Summer and Smoke, Camino Real, Sweet Bird of Youth, Night of the Iguana, Orpheus Descending, and The Rose Tattoo.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Abstract; symbolic; unlike any of Williams' other plays, June 5, 2000

By 

Frank Cunat - See all my reviews

This review is from: Camino Real (Paperback)

Anyone expecting Camino Real to be anything like the other plays Tennessee Williams wrote during the same period, such as Summer and Smoke or Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, will be puzzled. This is unlike anything else Williams wrote; it's nonlinear, overtly symbolic, lacking a conventional plot, and filled with images that don't make literal sense even as they speak directly to the subconscious. I think it could be Williams' most brilliant work, but others will prefer his more accessible plays and I don't dispute that. "Camino Real" is unusual and will not be for everyone.

In the play Williams deals with end-of-life issues in a very stark way; he also explores how a person's own fears can keep him or her from moving beyond the comfort of the familiar into unknown territory. I have to confess: I read the play after seeing it and being bowled over by the production (at the Shakespeare Theatre in Washington), and the question may be whether those who haven't seen it will find it equally powerful just to read it. This is a case where I think they may; the plays' symbols and images come alive in the imagination. Even if you don't like it, you'll find it thoughtful and challenging.

4.0 out of 5 stars Camino Real, October 30, 2011

By 

ttsgurl - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Camino Real. (Paperback)

The book was in okay quality. After I opened and read the book, the covers started to remove themselves from the book. This might have just been the way the book was created so I am not angry.

1 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Intriguing..., March 14, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Camino Real (Paperback)

A truly bizarre plot line with equally bizarre settings and character developements. I read this play without completely understanding it (ok, in truth I didn't get it at all), but I think that it deserves further examination.