The Theatre of Tennessee Williams Volume IV: Sweet Bird of Youth, Period of Adjustment, Night of the Iguana
Tennessee Williams
(Author)
Description
The Theatre of Tennessee Williams brings together in matching format the plays of one of America's most persistently influential and innovative dramatists. Arranged in chronological order, this ongoing series includes the original cast listings and production notes for all full-length plays. Now available as a New Directions Paperbook, Volume IV contains a wonderfully diverse collection of Williams's works. Sweet Bird of Youth (1959) is a dramatic study of a fading Hollywood actress, who tries to recapture her youth through a young drifter half her age. In a lighter mood, Period of Adjustment (1960) tells of the marital troubles of two "Middle American couples, a departure for the playwright who himself labeled it a 'serious comedy.'" The Night of the Iguana (1961), in sharp contrast, tells of human frailty and redemptive strength on the West Coast of Mexico.
Product Details
Price
$35.00
$32.55
Publisher
New Directions Publishing Corporation
Publish Date
January 17, 1972
Pages
376
Dimensions
5.74 X 1.29 X 8.31 inches | 1.24 pounds
Language
English
Type
Hardcover
EAN/UPC
9780811204224
BISAC Categories:
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Tennessee Williams (Thomas Lanier Williams; 1911-83) was a US playwright, whose controversial plays dealt with themes of repressed sexuality and family conflict. Williams was the most popular playwright in America between 1945 and 1960, winning the Pulitzer Prize twice and the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award four times. Amongst serious playwrights, only Eugene O'Neill equalled his achievements on the Broadway stage; several of Williams's plays were also made into successful films. The son of a shoe salesman, Williams grew up in some poverty in Mississippi and Missouri. Many of his early frustrations, which are reflected in his plays, arose from the prudery of his mother and the coarseness of his womanizing father, who, as his son's homosexuality became apparent, invariably referred to him as 'Miss Nancy'. The playwright revealed his homosexuality in his Memoirs (1975), having previously explored the subject in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and Suddenly Last Summer. Williams tried his hand at fiction and poetry before turning to drama in the late 1930s, winning a Theatre Guild prize for the four one-act plays entitled American Blues in 1939. Recognition as a major playwright came with The Glass Menagerie, a tender work inspired by the tragic life of his sister, a schizophrenic. His next play, the brutal A Streetcar Named Desire, opened in 1947, winning the Pulitzer Prize and making a star of Marlon Brando. It was followed a year later by Summer and Smoke. In 1949, these three plays were running simultaneously in London. His later works included The Rose Tattoo (1951), Camino Real (1953), Orpheus Descending (1957), and SWEET BIRD OF YOUTH (1959), which opened with Paul Newman and Geraldine Page in the leads. By the late 1950s, Williams was being accused of repeating himself, and after Period of Adjustment (1960) and The Night of the Iguana (1961), his plays were received unenthusiastically. During his later years, Williams became increasingly dependent on drugs and alcohol, suffering a nervous breakdown in 1969. He died in 1983.