Customer Reviews

Three by Tennessee: Sweet Bird of Youth; The Rose Tattoo; The Night of the Iguana (Signet Classic)

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A more suitable compilation than this will not be found. These three plays are arguably the essential core of the Williams canon, and certainly a great starting place for novices.

Sweey Bird of Youth is blessed with perhaps the finest epitaph ever in a modern drama, when the play's main character emanates Williams's legendary compassion with the concluding line, "all I ask is for the recognition of me in you, and time, the enemy, in us all." Shakespeare would have salivated.

Both the Rose Tattoo and Night of the Iguana exhibit Ibsen's impression upon Williams, as Williams incorporates brilliant metaphor's that wrap around both plays like knotted ribbons, but Williams's poetic language in each surpasses that of Ibsen by eons. Much in the vein of Ibsen's The Wild Duck or Chekov's The Seagull, Williams gives us a lesson in fate, freedom and human desire with his Iguana, tied to a post by a rope and struggling to escape, waiting to be killed as food, and he walks us through a world of intense nostalgia and heartbreak with the Rose Tattoo marking the chests of Serafina's lovers.

Even O'Neil, lauded by most as our finest American playwright, never quite matched the powerful language of the heart that saturates these three works of gritty, raw desire and nostalgia. Both of which, as Williams insists, take up plenty of space in the hearts of all.

When you read Tennessee Williams' plays like "Sweet Bird of Youth," "The Rose Tattoo," and "The Night of the Iguana," you will seem emerging patterns especially about how women are portrayed in Southern gentille society. The three women, Princess in Sweet Bird," Serafina in "The Rose Tattoo," and Maxine and Hannah in "The Night of the Iguana," are all unique. Princess is really Alexandra Del Lago, a fading actress, who takes up with Chance Wayne who returns to his hometown to claim his love, "Heavenly," and yes that's really her name from her father, suitor, and townsmen. Heavenly is now unable to bear a child and there's a story behind it. Serafina mourns the loss of her beloved husband who was not all he seemed to be to her. Unlike Sweet Bird of Youth which takes place in one or two days, The Rose Tattoo stretches over a span of years. The Night of the Iguana is also placed within a small amount of time with Maxine, the owner of a Mexican hotel, with a defrocked Rev. Shannon and a couple of unusual tourists, Hannah and her 97 year old grandfather and the oldest living poet. Hannah is the old maid spinster who makes her living by painting water colors.
I am surprised that Williams' plays are not revived enough today whether Broadway or in the local theatres. Tennessee Williams was my favorite playwright because he created memorable characters and believable scenarios. I get the feeling that there was a great sense of loneliness in his characters and a longing to connect to the world that appears to have forgotten them.