Customer Reviews

Tennessee Williams: Plays 1957-1980 (Library of America)

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Tennessee Williams represented a major advance in American drama as he introduced a lyricism that had previously been missing. Eugene O'Neill helped the American theatre grow up, but Williams was the one who made it sing.

Williams was able to create complex, vibrant plays which gave intense life to all of the contradictions, nastiness, dysfunction and beauty of American life and families. America has never produced a more honest or sincere playwright. His characters are always searching for ways to hang on to their humanity as the forces of repression and authoritarianism threaten to swallow them up or destroy them.

But above all else, Williams' dialogue is superbly, sublimely poetic. For Williams, the drama is in language itself, and no one has ever used words to greater effect than Tennessee Williams. Both Library of America volumes of Williams' plays are essential reading for people interested in theatre, America, and/or the possibilities of hope and grace in turbulent times.

Contains many of TW's later and more abstract works. The book is bound well, containing a ribbon placeholder. A must have for aspiring theater majors.

All of Tennessee William's writings, whether his plays, poetry, or his short stories are lyrical in his use of imagery,irony, humor,and all ways uplifting. His works all go to the heart of the "human condition"....love, not finding love, losing love, but as an actual and central reason for Life!

He has a great affection for all of his characters from Blanche DuBois to Maxine, to Alma, to Maggie 'the Cat". His male characters seem to be drawn more to everyday types, though ones who are searching, or tortured by love. Tennessee is a national treasure, his "way with words" unparalleled, and truly THE only great American playright.

Just a suggestion....there is another review posted here on this book by some person from Utah. Even though this person claims he read the book, if he did, he just did NOT get any of Tennessee's stories or plays at all. DO NOT GIVE THE "UTAH" REVIEW OF THE WORKS OF TENNESSEE WILLIAMS ANY CREDENCE.

If you have nothing else yet written by Williams, this is a great place to start. Also highly recommend his collection of Short Stories, as well as his collection of Poetry.

I, for one, worship the pulp Tennesse Williams typed upon, but I think Mark E. Baxter's review below might just give Tenn himself a run for his money when it comes to audaciously witty, ironic, shocking, and ultimately moving writing. At the very least, Williams (a man who was once seen at a production of "A Streetcar Named Desire" cackling "Haha, she's off to the nuthouse now!" as the curtain fell) would have enjoyed this hilariously, astonishingly off-kilter review. Brava, Mark E. Baxter! Well done!

Tennessee Williams is in the top ranks of American playwrights. His works are a MUST for serious students of the American theatre. Moreover, they are wonderful works for actors to read and learn from -- some of the finest characters, most poignant scenes, and brilliant insights on human nature AND theatrical staging that you can find anywhere. Cheerful? No. Uplifting? Usually not. Brilliant, stageworthy and gripping? Always. This collection, both volumes, gives you all the plays, plus some very worthwhile notes and prefaces from Williams himself.

My review refers to the two Ten Williams volumes of the LoA.
I love the LoA. The books give me the supreme pleasure in reading. They are so beautifully printed on optimal paper in an optimal size, that I sometimes read stuff that is not worth reading.
I have read '10' for two reasons: 1. because I had bought the LoA, and 2. because I had read a lot about the 'glorious bird' in Gore Vidal's 2 volume memoirs. And then, of course, I had seen the Glass Menagerie on Stage and the Cat on the Hot Tin Roof in the movies. Can't remember what else I might have seen before I read this. I saw Suddenly Last Summer only after I read it. I never saw A Streetcar or the Iguana. Pity.
Let me say straightforward, that I love half a dozen to maximum 10 of TW's plays. They are pulp material, they are trash, they are melodrama, and they are true, and gripping, and honest, and vulgar...
And they are great.
But the early plays are plain nothing, while the last few ones are abominable.
It is impossible to draw a strict line when he started to write readable stuff and when he declined so badly that he stopped doing that. But for me it is clear: his early attempts are trash, and so are his last.
My conclusion: the LoA would have done better to restrict themselves to one volume and then focus on the main phase.
If they want to re-issue, I can offer advice as to which plays to include and which ones not.

Why American critics are so desperate to make Tennessee Williams into the "great" American playwright is beyond me -- perhaps they feel inadequate when compared to the genius that's come out of England and Continental Europe (e.g., Shaw, Shakespeare, Moliere).

The characters are seldom well-developed, and frequently, I found myself not caring what happened to them. Or rather, I hoped that Mr. Williams would kill them all off a little quicker so he could end the wretched work.

Tennessee Williams was familiar to me only as the name behind some movies adapted from his plays and a fairly frequent mention in some literature/drama classes from college. I recently read his collected works in these 2 volumes from the excellent Library of America series and his plays are totally different in tone and content than his movies which have been adapted, cleaned up and given happier endings.

So here are my impressions. First, Williams' range is extremely limited with almost all his plays based on the grossest immorality and exploitation. In one essay entitled "Something Wild", Williams admitted his purpose was for a play to be a "punch to the solar plexus". In other words, he aims to offend people. (In today's PC-speak, it is called making the public "think" - but it still comes out the same.)

Most of Williams' plays are autobiographical so they involve dysfunctional families, drug and alcohol abuse, mental illness, and sexual exploitation and perversions ranging from pedophilia to homosexual behavior. With almost no exceptions, these plays should not be read by high school or younger children.

Williams is a good writer and his plays are often gripping and his characters are unique and fascinating in a voyeuristic sense.

Now I will list his works and what they are about so you can decide if this is material you wish to read.

--Orpheus Descending - Young drifter falls for married woman, gets caught and lynched.

--Suddenly Last Summer - Relatives fight over inheritance of homosexual child molester who was savagely murdered by his victims.

--Sweet Bird of Youth - Ne'er-do-well gigolo returns to hometown where he is hated due to the human wreckage he has caused.

--Period of Adjustment - 2 newlywed couples work out married life.

--The Night of the Iguana - Ex-minister turned seducer of underage girls hooks up with sugar mama who owns a seedy tourist hotel in Mexico.

--The Eccentricities of a Nightingale - Minister's daughter becomes town prostitute.

--The Milk Train Doesn't Sop Here Anymore - Young gigolo interacts with dying old film star.

--The Mutilated - Aging whore with one breast comes to terms with aging.

--Kindom of Earth - Aging showgirl on her honeymoon with a dying homosexual husband who she thought was rich, dumps him while he is dying for his scumbag half-brother who is real inheritor of estate.

--Small Craft Warnings - Promiscuous bi-sexual losers in a bar use each other.

--Outcry - Unintelligible.

--Vieux carre - Autobiographical play of sexual deviants in run-down New Orleans boarding house.

--A Lovely Sunday for Creve Coeur - Social climber dumped by her lover settles for boorish borther of her roommate.

--Battle of Angels - 1st version of Orpheus Descending. Past of rapist catches up with him.

--Not About Nightingales - Abused prisoners revolt against warden.

--Spring Storm - Unrequited love leads to tragedy.

--I Rise in Flame Cried the Phoenix - 1 scene play of DH Lawrence's death.

--27 Wagons Full of cotton - Businessman trades his wife's sexual favors to cover up his arson of a competing business.

--The Lady of Larkspur Lotion - Aging prostitute and starving author fight against landlady. (Larkspur was used to treat lice)

--The Last of my Solid Gold Watches - Aging salesman relives past.

--Portrait of a Madonna - Aging spinster spins dream of rape by an old love and is taken to the asylum.

--Auto da Fe - Guilty homosexual self-immolates.

--Lord Byron's Love Letter - Aging spinster sells glimpses of a love-letter from her childhood seducer, Lord Byron.

--This Property is Condemned - Younger sister of recently deceased whore takes over the business.

--The Glass Menagarie - Warehouseman who wishes to be a poet, looks back on the family he abandoned - an aging mother who lives in the past and a handicapped sister who is extremely isolated.

--Something Wild -Essay complaining that community theater had polite, well-dressed people instead of long-haired perverted addicts.

--Talk to me Like the Rain - One-scene converstaion between boyfriend who cheats, boozes and steals and his despairing girlfriend.

--Camino Real - Various characters from Casanova to Kilroy interact in a New Orleans-like hell. Makes no sense.

--Something Unspoken - 2 old maids have something unspoken between them. What? Your guess is as good as mine.

--A Streetcar named Desire - Aging older sister who has run through her inheritance moves in with her married younger sister and is raped by that sister's ape of a husband.

--Summer and Smoke - Earlier version of "Eccentricities of a Nightingale". Male character is sleazier in this version.

--The Rose Tatoo - 15 yr.old daughter and widow of cheating drug smuggler become loose women.

I know, I know. It looks really bad when you look at the specifics. Don't say you weren't warned. There are lots better plays and playwrights out there to spend your time with.