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 |
Tennessee Williams: Plays 1957-1980 (Library of America) |
List Price: $40.00
Your Price: $25.20 |
 |
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Reviews |
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Rating:  Summary: Grimy and one-dimensional. Review: 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.
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