This is a list of theone-act plays written byAmerican playwrightTennessee Williams.
Beauty Is the Word is Tennessee Williams' first play. The 12-page one-act was written in 1930 while Williams was a freshman atUniversity of Missouri inColumbia, Missouri and submitted to a contest run by the school's Dramatic Arts Club.[1]Beauty was staged in competition and became the first freshman play ever to be selected for citation (it was awarded honorable mention); the college paper noted that it was "a play with an original and constructive idea, but the handling is toodidactic and the dialog often too moralistic."[1] The play tells the story of aSouth Pacific missionary, Abelard, and his wife, Mabel, and "both endorses the minister's life and corrects his tendency toVictorian prudery."[1]
Why Do You Smoke So Much, Lily? was written in February 1935. In it, Lily, a frustrated chain-smoking young woman, is hounded by her mother. After being discovered in the papers left to theUniversity of the South inSewanee, Tennessee, "Lily" was first produced by theChattanooga Theatre Centre (Chattanooga, TN) as part of theFellowship of Southern Writers' Conference on Southern Literature, a biennial event that was hosted by the influentialArts and Education Council of Chattanooga.
Cairo, Shanghai, Bombay! was Williams' first produced play. He wrote it in 1935 while he was staying in theMidtown, Memphis home of his grandparents. It was first performed July 12, 1935, by theGarden Players community theater inMemphis, Tennessee.[2] Regarding this production, Williams wrote in hisMemoirs, "The laughter, genuine and loud, at the comedy I had written enchanted me. Then and there the theatre and I found each other for better and for worse. I know it's the only thing that's saved my life."[3][4] It was published for the first time in 2016, in theTennessee Williams Annual Review.[5]
The Magic Tower was written quickly by Williams in April 1936 in order to meet the deadline for a one-act play contest sponsored by the Webster Groves Theatre Guild inSt. Louis, Missouri.[6] Williams won first place andThe Magic Tower was performed by the Guild on October 13, 1936, to positive reviews.[7] The play tells the story of a young artist and his ex-actress wife living in a slum that they refer to as their "magic tower," following them as their optimism gradually fades.
Written in 1937 under the titleEscape,Summer at the Lake was unproduced until November 11, 2004, when it opened at theNew York City Center in a collection of rarely seen Williams one-acts titledFive by Tenn.[8] Theautobiographical play tells the story of Donald Fenway, a sensitive teenager who feels trapped by his self-absorbed Southern mother and his shoe-company executive father, who wants him to abandon his plans for college and find a menial job. The play was interpreted by several critics as "an early snapshot" of the characters and themes that later appeared in Williams' breakthrough1944 playThe Glass Menagerie, which also focused on a combative mother and a dreamy son bent on escape.[8][9]
The Palooka is a 1937 one-act about an old has-been boxer. The characters are The Palooka (Galveston Joe), The Kid and The Trainer. The Kid is nervous about his first fight, and The Palooka relieves the Kid's anxiety by telling about the fictional life he wanted to lead after he retired as Galveston Joe. Its world premiere was presented by the Chattanooga Theatre Centre (Chattanooga, TN) as part of the Fellowship of Southern Writers' Southern Writers Conference in 2000, and was later performed on October 2, 2003, by the Hartford Stage Company inHartford, Connecticut.
The Fat Man's Wife was written by Williams in 1938 but remained unproduced until November 11, 2004, when it opened at theNew York City Center in a collection of rarely seen Williams one-acts titledFive by Tenn.[8] The play tells the story of Vera Cartwright, a sophisticated Manhattan society lady who is forced to choose between her boorish husband, a theatrical producer, and a young playwright who has become her admirer.The Fat Man's Wife received the sharpest criticism of any of the five exhumed plays; inThe New Yorker,John Lahr called it a "heterosexual fantasy awash with false emotion and bad writing,"[9] andThe New York Times noted that "Williams is obviously attempting to write in a style entirely alien to him, trying on a faux-urbane manner that fits him like a rented tuxedo in the wrong size."[8]
Adam and Eve on a Ferry was written in 1939. It contains three characters:D.H. Lawrence, his wifeFrieda, and a female visitor named Ariadne. Ariadne comes seeking D.H. Lawrence because she had a run-in on a boat with a man, and wants romance and sex advice from Lawrence. The setting is described as "The sun porch of a villa in the Alps Maritimes." The only things mentioned on the stage are numerous potted plants, two wicker chairs, and "a banner bearing the woven figure of a phoenix in a nest of flames." Ariadne is described as plain and "spinsterish looking," and she wears a hat, while Lawrence sports a "gold satin dressing robe with a lavender shawl."
The Parade, or Approaching the End of a Summer is a shortautobiographical play that was written in 1941.The Parade is set on the wharfs ofProvincetown, Massachusetts, and tells the story of a young playwright named Don dealing with his unrequitedhomosexual love for another man. The situations and characters in the play were "clearly drawn from a very autobiographical foundation,"[10] with Don's dilemma reflecting a relationship Williams had in Provincetown with "his actual lover for [one] summer, Kip Kiernan."[11]The Parade was written after a fight with Kiernan, and Williams reflected in 1962 that "[the version of Kip in that play] is very, in fact completely different from Kip as he was. When someone hurts us deeply, we no longer see them at all clearly. Not until time has put them back in focus."[12] That year, Williams retitled and expandedThe Parade into a full-length play that was produced in 1981 asSomething Cloudy, Something Clear.[11][12]The Parade was not performed until 2006, when it opened on October 1 in Provincetown as part of the First Annual Provincetown Tennessee Williams Festival byShakespeare on the Cape. Original cast members:Ben Griessmeyer, Vanessa Caye, Elliot Eustis, Megan Bartle, David Landon. Co-Directed by Jef Hall-Flavin and Eric Powell Holm.
The Long Goodbye is a 1940 one-act that deals with the male main character's memories of his life from when his family consisted of four people through his father leaving the family, his mother's death, and his sister's fall from grace. The scheme of the play consists of the main character moving out of the apartment he grew up in while experiencing extreme flashbacks of both terrible and glorious moments in his past.
Auto Da Fé was written in 1941. The plot concerns a young postal worker, Eloi, whose sexuality is repressed by a rigidly moralistic mother.
The Lady of Larkspur Lotion was written in 1941. It depicts the conflict between a dreamy, delusional heroine (à la Blanche DuBois inA Streetcar Named Desire) and her brusque, practical landlady, who wants to kick her out of her apartment. A 1973 summer production was staged by Producer, William T. Gardner, at theAcademy Playhouse,Lake Forest, Illinois, Directed byJosé Quintero.
At Liberty was written in 1941 and tells the story of a once-successful actress who retreats to her childhood home inMississippi, with fantasies of resuscitating her career.
In January 1941, Williams completed a one-act play centering on "a deranged spinster living in poverty and with her memories of a former lover."[13] Variously titledPort Mad andThe Leafless Block, he revised the play in 1944 and renamed itPortrait of a Madonna.[13] After seeingJessica Tandy's performance in a 1947West Coast production ofMadonna, Williams decided to cast her in the original production ofA Streetcar Named Desire. He later wrote, "It was instantly apparent to me that Jessica was Blanche [DuBois]."[14]
Moony's Kid Don't Cry originated as an eight-page melodrama titledHot Milk at Three in the Morning, which Williams wrote in 1930 at theUniversity of Missouri.[1]Hot Milk was produced at MU in 1932, and was revised and titledMoony's Kid Don't Cry in 1941, when it was published inMargaret Mayorga'sBest One Act Plays of 1940.[15] It was the first of Williams' plays to be published. In both versions of the play, a poor young married couple get into an argument over their child and, eventually, their relationship.
The Strangest Kind of Romance was written in 1942. The play takes place in a boardinghouse run by the Landlady, who welcomes a new, but troubled, tenant known only as "Little Man". He develops a strange attachment to a cat named Nitchevo, the pet of the previous tenant.
The Purification is the onlyverse play Tennessee Williams wrote; Williams recalled that it was written in the summer of 1940, although his biographer Lyle Leverich thought it more likely written in spring 1942. It was published in 1944 in the anthologyNew Directions 1944 under the titleDos Ranchos, or the Purification (in later publications, this was shortened toThe Purification). Set on a ranch in the mid-19th century, the play deals with anincestuous brother/sister relationship and a murder trial.[16]The Purification had its New York debut off-Broadway at theTheatre de Lys on December 8, 1959.
Ten Blocks on the Camino Real is a one-act play that was written in early 1946 and published in Williams' 1948 play collectionAmerican Blues; in 1952, the playwright expanded it into a full-length play,Camino Real.[17] Williams directs the reader to use the Anglicized pronunciation "Cá-mino Réal"
This one-act play was written in 1946. In1966, the play was expanded into thefilm of the same name, which starredNatalie Wood andRobert Redford.
27 Wagons Full of Cotton is a 1946 one-act play that Williams referred to as "aMississippi Delta comedy." Jake, a middle-aged, shady cotton gin owner with antiquated equipment burns down the mill of the Syndicate Plantation, a rival in the cotton business, where Silva Vicarro serves as Superintendent. Being of Latin descent, with an Italian surname, and thus a community outsider, Vicarro, who knows what happened but cannot prove it, seeks revenge by raping Jake's young and voluptuous but childlike and naïve wife Flora.Elia Kazan's controversial 1956 filmBaby Doll, which Williams described as a "grotesque folk comedy", was based on this play andThe Unsatisfactory Supper, which has two similar main characters. The name and character of Silva Vicarro is used inBaby Doll.[18]
This play was first copyrighted in 1946.[19] Archie Lee and his Baby Doll Meighan, who parallel Jake and Flora in27 Wagons Full of Cotton, are reluctantly providing a home to Aunt Rose, an elderly relation who has been passed around among the family. An "unsatisfactory supper" cooked by Aunt Rose brings the issue to a head. Rose was the name of Tennessee Williams' sister.[20]
Elia Kazan's controversial 1956 filmBaby Doll was based on this play and27 Wagons Full of Cotton, which has two similar main characters; the names Archie Lee and Baby Doll are used for the main characters inBaby Doll.
The Last of My Solid Gold Watches was written in 1946, and centers on a Mississippi shoe salesman named Charlie Colton "whose time has passed and who pathetically echoes himself"; Williams is thought to have drawn on aspects of his father, a traveling salesman, in his portrait of Colton.[21]
Hello from Bertha is a 1946 one-act, about the dramatic life and death of aprostitute in a low-class bordello. It is very strong and very poetic as Bertha imagines events and allusions to her last moments. There are three characters in the play: Lena, a young prostitute who listens to Bertha, and Goldie the old lady of the house who wants to evict Bertha. A production was staged by Producer, William T. Gardner, in the summer of 1973 at theAcademy Playhouse, Lake Forest, Illinois Directed by José Quintero
Written in 1946,Lord Byron's Love Letter takes place in New Orleans in the late 19th century duringMardi Gras. A Spinster and an Old Woman advertise that they have one of Lord Byron's love letters (written to her grandmother). A Matron stops by to look at it and drags her partially inebriated Husband along. As the spinster reads from her grandmother's diary, it becomes apparent that the grandmother and the old woman are one and the same. According to the two women, the grandmother met Lord Byron in Greece, shortly before his death, and they had a summer filled with romance. After he died, the grandmother retired from the world and remained in complete seclusion as an honor to his memory (this does not prevent her from commenting on the spinster's every action). They only gave permission to The Matron and her Husband to see the letter from a distance and they refused to show this letter from near.[22]
I Rise in Flame, Cried the Phoenix presents a fictionalized version of the death of English writerD. H. Lawrence on the French Riveria; Lawrence was one of Williams' chief literary influences.[23] The play was completed in 1941, but was not published until 1951, whenNew Directions Publishers released it in a limited edition.[24][25]
Talk to Me Like the Rain and Let Me Listen was written in 1953 as part of a series ofone-acts Williams wrote in particular forcommunity theatre. Unlike the large scenic demands of his larger works (i.e.A Streetcar Named Desire)Talk Like The Rain... features a small-scale, bare-room situation. It involves an unnamedMan andWoman who are bound together in an endless cycle by their hopeless poverty. Major William's themes are explored in the Man's alcoholism and the Woman's desperation. Although not specified, the one-act can be worked in a moresurrealist fashion.Monologues for both sexes, with the Woman's being substantially longer, spanning several pages.
The Dark Room was written in c. 1939, and published in 1958.
The Case of the Crushed Petunias was written in 1941 and is the story of Dorothy Simple, a woman trapped in her job at a prim and proper shop in Massachusetts. Her complacent existence is interrupted by a visit from a tall man who works for LIFE Inc. who, she discovers, trampled her petunias the night before. With offers of poetry and packets of seeds, he helps her break free from her dreary life.
A Perfect Analysis Given by a Parrot was written in 1958.
Suddenly Last Summer was written in New York in 1957 and debuted as part of a double bill of one-act plays by Williams, titledGarden District.[26] (The other one-act play wasSomething Unspoken.)Garden District premieredOff-Broadway at theYork Playhouse on January 7, 1958.
Something Unspoken was written in London in 1951 and debuted as part of a double bill of one-act plays by Williams, titledGarden District.[27] (The other one-act wasSuddenly Last Summer.)Garden District premieredOff-Broadway at the York Playhouse on January 7, 1958. The titleGarden District is a misnomer, because whileSuddenly Last Summer takes place inthe Garden District of New Orleans,Something Unspoken takes place in Meridian, Louisiana.
And Tell Sad Stories of the Deaths of Queens ... (A Play in Two Scenes) was initially written in 1957 and worked on as late as 1962. It was published in 2005 by New Directions inMister Paradise and Other One-Act Plays (NDP1007). A slightly different version was first published inPolitical Stages: Plays That Shaped a Century (Applause Theatre & Cinema Books, 2002). The play concerns the private life of "Candy" Delaney, a successful interior decorator and landlord who is also transgender. It was first performed by theShakespeare Theatre Company on April 22, 2004, at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.
The Mutilated was written in 1966, and debuted as part of a double-bill of one-act plays written by Williams titledSlapstick Tragedy (the other one-act wasThe Gnädiges Fräulein.)Slapstick Tragedy premiered onBroadway at theLongacre Theatre on February 22, 1966. For acting in the two halves ofSlapstick Tragedy,Zoe Caldwell won the first of her four Tony Awards.[28]
The Gnädiges Fräulein was written in 1966, and debuted as part of a double-bill of one-act plays written by Williams titledSlapstick Tragedy (the other one-act wasThe Mutilated.)Slapstick Tragedy premiered onBroadway at theLongacre Theatre on February 22, 1966.
Confessional was written in 1967 and published in 1969 in the Williams anthologyDragon Country. It is set in a seedy bar in Southern California and centers on the confessions of four of its habitués of the bar. The staging creates the sense that the characters are confessing privately to the audience rather than to each other. The play premiered in July 1971 at the Maine Theatre Arts Festival in Bar Harbor in a double bill with Williams'sI Can't Imagine Tomorrow. Williams later expandedConfessional to a two-act playSmall Craft Warnings which premiered in 1972.Confessional was revived in 2016 for its British premiere at London'sSouthwark Playhouse.[29][30][31]
Now the Cats with Jewelled Claws was written in 1969. Set in the anteroom ofHell, it was described by Williams biographerDonald Spoto as "gruesome....a tale of madness, depravity and death."[32]
I Can't Imagine Tomorrow was a two-character play written for television, broadcast withTalk To Me Like The Rain And Let Me Listen under the collective title "Dragon Country" on WNET-TV in 1970.Kim Stanley plays a lonely but spirited spinster being courted by a pathologically shy teacher, played byWilliam Redfield. "Dragon Country" is available on DVD as part of theBroadway Theatre Archive.
Written in 1970,The Frosted Glass Coffin follows a group of retirees living at a hotel inMiami, Florida. In his memoirs, Williams wrote that he believed the "rather depressing" work to be "one of [his] best short plays."[33]
The Demolition Downtown was written in 1970.
A Cavalier for Milady is a two-act play written in 1976.
Written in 1976,A Lovely Sunday for Creve Coeur introduces Bodey, a hard-of-hearing 50-something, sharing her flat with Dorothea, 'Dottie', a Blanche DuBois-like 40-something civics teacher, smitten with the social-climbing principal of the school where she works, having already been taken advantage in the back seat of his car.
Kirche, Küche und Kinder was written in 1979. The title translates as "Church, Kitchen and Children" and is a reference to awell-known German slogan. It was first performed by The Jean Cocteau Repertory Company as a work-in-progress in September, 1979, at theBouwerie Lane Theatre in New York City, where it ran in repertory until January, 1980. The play is subtitled(An Outrage for the Stage). It was published in 2008 by New Directions inThe Traveling Companion & Other Plays (NDP1106).
Lifeboat Drill was written in 1979. On January 26, 2002,June Havoc andDick Cavett starred in a production of the play as part of the fourth annual Tennessee Williams marathon at the Hartford Stage Company.[34]
The Chalky White Substance was written in 1980. It was originally published in issue 66 ofAntaeus in 1991. It was first performed by theRunning Sun Theater Company on May 3, 1996, at theCenter Stage (New York) in New York City on a double-bill withThe Traveling Companion, collectively entitledWilliams' Guignol. The play is dedicated to authorJames Purdy.
This Is Peaceable Kingdom or Good Luck God was written in 1980.
Steps Must be Gentle was written in 1980.
The One Exception was written in 1983. It was originally published inThe Tennessee Williams Annual Review, Volume 3, in 2000. It was first performed on October 2, 2003, by theHartford Stage Company of Hartford, Connecticut.
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