Critical Companion to Tennessee Williams

CRITICAL COMPANION TO Tennessee Williams CRITICAL COMPANION TO Tennessee Williams GRETA HEINTZELMAN ALYCIA SMITH-HOWARD Critical Companion to Tennessee Williams Copyright © 2005 by Greta Heintzelman and Alycia Smith-Howard All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher. For information contact: Facts On File, Inc. 132 West 31st Street New York NY 10001 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Heintzelman, Greta. Critical companion to Tennessee Williams : the essential reference to his life and work / Greta Heintzelman, Alycia Smith-Howard. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8160-4888-6 (hardcover : alk. paper) American—20th century—Biography—Encyclopedias. I. Smith-Howard, Alycia. II. Title. PS3545.15365Z459 2004b 812′.54—dc22 2004007362 Facts On File books are available at special discounts when purchased in bulk quantities for businesses, associations, institutions, or sales promotions. Please call our Special Sales Department in New York at (212) 967-8800 or (800) 322-8755. You can find Facts On File on the World Wide Web at http://www.factsonfile.com Text design by Joan M. Toro Adapted by Erika K. Arroyo Cover design by Cathy Rincon Printed in the United States of America VB Hermitage 10 987654321 This book is printed on acid-free paper. For our mothers and in memory of Jennifer CONTENTS Acknowledgments viii Introduction ix Part I: Biography 1 Part II: Works A–Z 17 Part III: Related Entries 337 Part IV: Appendices Chronology of Life and Works 383 Festivals, Internet Resources, and Important Libraries for Research on Williams 387 Bibliography of Williams’s Works 389 Bibliography of Secondary Sources 401 Index 413 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS pecial thanks are due first and foremost to our County Public Library, Key West, Florida; and the Stwo contributing researchers/writers, Sabine C. Key West Art and Historical Society. Bauer and Sarah E. Cook, for their tireless efforts We are indebted to the following individuals and ceaseless enthusiasm; Jeff Soloway, our editor, without whose support this work would not have and Danielle Bonnici, his assistant, at Facts On been possible: Lois Brown, Dorothy H. Schnare, File, for their patience and sharp eyes; and our Jeanine M. Akers, Tom Lisanti, Helen M. Whall, ever-supportive literary agent, Elizabeth Frost- Asalé Angel-Ajani, David Schuller, Sean Scheller, Knappman (New England Publishing Associates). Carol and Marilyn Huffman, Vivian S. Howard, Our thanks are also due to the librarians and ref- Clydia Warrix Heintzelman, Claudia L. Pen- erence staff of the Billy Rose Theatre Collection, nington, Steve Pratt, Laurie Callahan, E. Frances New York Public Library; Bobst Library, New York White, Ali Mirsepassi, Sheila Thimba, Laurin University; University of Memphis Library; Mount Raiken, Michael Dinwiddie, Nick Lycos, Kathe Holyoke College Library; Sophia Smith Rare Book Ann Joseph, Sally Suttherland, Donal O’Shea, Library, Smith College; Cornell University Library; David Wolkowsky, Dann Dulin, Nydia Ferguson, Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Butler Beth Weinert, Genevieve Davila, Jean Disrud, Library, Columbia University; Harry Ransom Candace Whitaker, Don Booth, and David Center, University of Texas at Austin; Monroe Felstein. viii INTRODUCTION wenty years after his death, Tennessee Williams in Williams’s works, which are also characterized by Twas heralded in USA Today as “the hottest eloquent dialogue and richly complex characters. playwright in America” (October 22, 2003). Elyssa Each of Williams’s works challenges readers’ per- Gardner’s commentary in this publication revealed ceptions of style, structure, society, and the mean- popular culture’s recognition of the critical reassess- ing of literature, drama, theater, humanity, and, ment of Williams that has been percolating within ultimately, life itself. The range of his dramatic and the theater and the academy for many years. literary style is incomparable. Williams consistently Williams is finally being acknowledged as America’s tested the limits of realistic writing and theatrical greatest and most prolific playwright. Although his production. His first major success, The Glass works are, and have always been, an integral part of Menagerie, ushered in a new age of American the American literary, theatrical, and popular land- drama and theater. Throughout his life, he contin- scape, we are now witnessing a resurgence in the vis- ued to experiment with new forms and innovative ibility and appreciation of his literary achievement. techniques of expressionism to create a suitably Williams’s literary career spanned a period of vibrant world for his volatile characters. more than 40 years, and the sheer magnitude and His heroes, heroines, and antiheroes, such as volume of his artistic ambition make his work an Blanche DuBois, Maggie the Cat, Big Daddy, inexhaustible study. Despite numerous critical and Amanda and Tom Wingfield, Stanley Kowalski, and commercial failures in the latter part of his life, Baby Doll, have become mythic figures in the Williams never suppressed his drive to write and cre- American collective and cultural psyche. Beyond ate. From childhood to the day he died, Williams these well-known figures, the Williams canon is an wrote. He penned some 45 full-length plays and 60 unparalleled universe of intrinsically human char- shorter dramas, as well as screenplays, short stories, acters: brave and battered, flawed and fallible, yet letters, essays, and volumes of poetry. Previously ever hopeful. From the vindictive landladies of such unpublished materials held in special collections and works as Angel in the Alcove and Vieux Carré, the archives across the United States are being regularly crippled child of The Chronicle of a Demise, and the uncovered, produced, and published by eager literary tormented artists of At Liberty, Orpheus Descending, scholars and theatrical producers. Williams’s cre- In the Bar of a Tokyo Hotel, and The Notebook of ative genius continues to thrive, long after his death. Trigorin to the feuding brothers of Kingdom of Earth Noted for his poetic lyricism and often brutal and the quarreling friends of And Tell Sad Stories of frankness, Williams is celebrated as a “poet of the the Death of Queens, Something Cloudy, Something human heart” and as the “Laureate of the Outcast.” Clear, and Clothes for a Summer Hotel, Williams Loneliness, social isolation, and the conflict chronicles humanity in all its diverse and often between repression and release are primary themes painful complexity. ix x Critical Companion to Tennessee Williams The American South, particularly the land- Although there are a variety of works dedicated scape of rural Mississippi, is featured prominently to the life and works of Tennessee Williams, little as a setting and background throughout the has been written about Williams’s literary output in Williams canon. The Southern landscapes that its entirety. Much has been produced about partic- appear in his works are invested with his deep-set ular works, pivotal productions, films, and so forth, affection and disdain for the region. In his works but there has long been a need for a book that cov- this part of the world is simultaneously revered ers Williams’s life, characters, and works compre- and reviled as “the beauty spot of creation,” and as hensively and cohesively. This book fulfills that a “dragon country, the country of pain . an need as an all-encompassing guide to Williams’s uninhabitable country which is inhabited.” But body of work. In many cases this volume contains although he was Southern in his upbringing and the only significant critical commentary available outlook, Williams’s voice and vision exposed on numerous lesser-known Williams works, partic- deferred American myths and dreams beyond his ularly his fiction. regional locale. The primary goal of this volume is to assist As Lyle Leverich notes in his exceptional biogra- readers and students of Williams in their quest to phy Tom: The Unknown Tennessee Williams, although understand, enjoy, and situate the works and life Williams was so distinctly American in his art, “no of this great American writer. It is also intended to other American dramatist is more universally recog- provide scholars and those already familiar with nized, admired or produced.” In Russia, Williams is Williams’s oeuvre a convenient one-volume refer- the second most often produced playwright after ence source. We are both literary scholars and Anton Chekhov. Williams’s major plays (The Glass active theater professionals. This experience gives Menagerie, A Streetcar Named Desire, Cat on a Hot us a unique perspective on dramatic literature and Tin Roof, and The Night of the Iguana) are in contin- the nondramatic writings of a dramatist. Our ual revival across the United States and abroad, on sense of theory is tempered by our knowledge of Broadway, in the West End of London, and in count- practice and what Charles Marowitz calls “play- less regional theaters (not to mention college, uni- able values.” versity, and community theaters). Several theater Arranged alphabetically, the entries in this guide companies across the United States have recently provide critical information on a wide range of top- dedicated themselves to producing the Williams dra- ics directly related to the study of

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