Tennessee Williams in Provincetown (Paperback)

~ David Kaplan (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review

On judging a book by its cover: Depending on the p.o.v., one could either be drawn into or turned off by the depiction of an unseasoned, nubile, nude Tennessee (cut off discreetly at the waist) against a vibrant blue background above the dunes and edged in shocking pink. Since this is a slim paperbound volume, some snap judgments might be drawn. They would most likely all be wrong. What Kaplan, Williams specialist and "curator" of the newly inaugurated Provincetown Tennessee Williams Festival, has done is to produce a carefully researched scholarly monograph concentrating on the four summers (1940, 41, 44, 47) that Williams spent in P-town.... Much of the story told here by Kaplan is new material. He dug into archives, interviewed many survivors of the P-town days, and found the original text of the one-act play "The Parade," that was wrenched from the anguished Williams after the loss of his first love Kip Kiernan (Bernard Dubowsky), a twenty-two year old Canadian dancer. The play, says Kaplan, written in July and August of 1940, was lost, like the love it depicts, and not rediscovered until years later.... Recommended for all theater collections and personally for Williams afficionados. RICHARD M. BUCK, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts (Retired). Copyright 2007 Theatre Library Association. All rights reserved. --Broadside, vol 34, no 2 (Winter 2007)

Product Description

Tennesse Williams in Provincetown is the story of Tennesse Williams' four summer seasons in Provincetown, Massachusetts: 1940, '41, '44 and '47. During that time he wrote plays, short stories, and jewel-like poems. In Provincetown Williams fell in love unguardedly for perhaps the only time in his life. He had his heart broken there, perhaps irraparably. The man he thought might replace his first lover tried to kill him there, or at least Williams thought so. Williams drank in Provincetown, he swam there, and he took conga lessons there. He was poor and then rich there; he was photographed naked and clothed there. He was unknown and then famous--and throughout it all Williams wrote every morning. The list of plays Williams worked on in Provincetown include The Glass Menagerie, A Streetcar Named Desire, Summer and Smoke, the beginnings of The Night of the Iguana and Suddenly Last Summer, and an abandoned autobiographical play set in Provincetown, The Parade. Tennessee Williams in Provincetown collects original interviews, journals, letters, photographs, accounts from previous biographies, newspapers from the period, and Williams' own writing to establish how the time Williams spent in Provincetown shaped him for the rest of his life. The book identifies major themes in Williams' work that derive from his experience in Provincetown, in particular the necessity of recollection given the short season of love. The book also connects Williams mature theatrical experiments to his early friendships with Jackson Pollack, Lee Krasner and the German performance artist Valeska Gert. Tennessee Williams in Provincetown, based on several years of extensive research and interviews, includes previously unpublished photographs, previously unpublished poetry, and anecdotes by those who were there.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 148 pages
• Publisher: Hansen Publishing Group, LLC; 1st edition (October 2, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1601824211
• ISBN-13: 978-1601824219
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.4 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #864,997 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A highly admirable defense of theTennessee Williams legacy, November 10, 2006

By	Travel Imaginator - See all my reviews

Tennessee Williams in Provincetown sheds much needed insight on what is too often perceived as "murky" regarding Williams' accomplishments. Author David Kaplan vigorously asserts that excessive scrutiny on Williams' complicated and often chaotic life obscured his literary accomplishments. While Williams' time in Provincetown was limited, his writings bore fruit for future works including Night of the Iguana, Sudden Last Summer among others. Kaplan also advises that Tennesse Williams, struggling with whatever demons, still made the effort of regular, disciplined work throughout his life. Kaplan's descriptions of the Provincetown Williams partook of during the early 1940's is evocative and atmospheric. Among the anecdotes is a charming recounting of meeting actress Tallulah Bankhead, and their ensuing friendship. Kaplan identifies striking parallels of Williams with another Provincetown "alumnus" playwright Eugene O'Neill. This ably researched monograph results in a highly admirable brief and defense of Tennessee Williams' legacy.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Remember Me As One Of Your Lovers", July 11, 2007

By	H. F. Corbin "Foster Corbin" (ATLANTA, GA USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

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In what David Kaplan in the "Preface" calls a monograph rather than a biography, TENNESSEE WILLIAMS IN PROVINCETOWN covers four brief seasons in the playwright's life spent at what he described in his MEMOIRS as "the frolicsome tip of the Cape," 1940, 1941, 1944 and 1947. Williams was 29 when he first went to the Cape in 1940. It was there that he had his first brief love affair and also met the man he was to spend 14 years or his life with, Frank Merlo. It was a time of youthful abandon, innocence, great expectations, disciplined mornings as a writer and nights of sexual freedom that Provincetown provided.

Mr. Kaplan acknowledges that much of Williams' Provincetown story has been covered by other biographers and gives them credit, including voluminous footnotes as well as a bibliography here. He also indicates that he was able to interview several persons still living who knew Williams during this time in his life and offers new information including material published for the first time: (For instance, the poem "Request" with the lines, "Remember me as one of your lovers,/not the greatest of these, not the least,/but in some small way distinguished from all of the others/Remember me, in the end, please, as one of your lovers.")

The author also managed to uncover unpublished photographs of Williams, along with shots of his first love Kip Kiernan and his hot-blooded lover Pancho Rodriguez. According to Kaplan, as Williams became more famous, he was sought out for sex by people wanting to sleep with a rising playwright. On the other hand, he was quite a looker, as the nude photographs here indicate, and was very successful as well in trysts with strangers.

Mr. Kaplan writes of other artists Williams spent time with, Jackson Pollock, Tullulah Bankhead, Marlon Brando--who fixed the plumbing of the toilet in the Provincetown house where Williams was staying before auditioning for and getting the part of Stanley in "A Streetcar Named Desire"--Carson McCullers et al. He also gives an insightful analysis of one of Williams' later plays, "Something Cloudy, Something Clear."

Unlike some of Williams' biographers who wrote for the sensational (Kaplan names names) and critics whose homophobia oftened surfaced in their reviews, this writer approaches his task with the reverence that a writer of Williams' stature richly deserves.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great Slice of Life, May 13, 2007

By	D. Claps - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

If you're familiar with the myriad bios on TW out there, you won't find many new bits here. Definitely treat yourself to reading "Something Cloudy Something Clear" alongside "TW in Provincetown". Despite never being quite certain what is autobio and what is wishful thinking in this play, it certainly gives you an invocation of the era more than "TW in Provincetown" does. As a record of gaylife in the WWII era, the book could've been a little more indepth on the subject - I'm not sure how many gay men & women were able to enjoy their lifestyles as much as TW did.