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Plays, 1957-1980
The adventurous and sometimes shocking later works of playwright Tennessee Williams, from 1957 to 1980, are collected in this volume, which includes "Orpheus Descending, Suddenly Last Summer", and "The Night of the Iguana".
975 pages, Hardcover
First published October 1, 2000
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About the author
Tennessee Williams
754 books3,703 followersThomas Lanier Williams III, better known by the nickname Tennessee Williams, was a major American playwright of the twentieth century who received many of the top theatrical awards for his work. He moved to New Orleans in 1939 and changed his name to "Tennessee," the state of his father's birth.
Raised in St. Louis, Missouri, after years of obscurity, at age 33 he became famous with the success of The Glass Menagerie (1944) in New York City. This play closely reflected his own unhappy family background. It was the first of a string of successes, including A Streetcar Named Desire (1947), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955), Sweet Bird of Youth (1959), and The Night of the Iguana (1961). With his later work, he attempted a new style that did not appeal to audiences. His drama A Streetcar Named Desire is often numbered on short lists of the finest American plays of the 20th century, alongside Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey into Night and Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman.
Much of Williams' most acclaimed work has been adapted for the cinema. He also wrote short stories, poetry, essays and a volume of memoirs. In 1979, four years before his death, Williams was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame.
From Wikipedia
Raised in St. Louis, Missouri, after years of obscurity, at age 33 he became famous with the success of The Glass Menagerie (1944) in New York City. This play closely reflected his own unhappy family background. It was the first of a string of successes, including A Streetcar Named Desire (1947), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955), Sweet Bird of Youth (1959), and The Night of the Iguana (1961). With his later work, he attempted a new style that did not appeal to audiences. His drama A Streetcar Named Desire is often numbered on short lists of the finest American plays of the 20th century, alongside Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey into Night and Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman.
Much of Williams' most acclaimed work has been adapted for the cinema. He also wrote short stories, poetry, essays and a volume of memoirs. In 1979, four years before his death, Williams was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame.
From Wikipedia
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
January 9, 2023
Tennessee Williams In The Library Of America -- 2
In 2000, the Library of America published two volumes of the plays of Tennessee Williams edited by the Williams' scholars Mel Gussow (1933 -- 2005) and Kenneth Holditch. The second volume of the two, which I am reviewing here, includes 13 plays written between 1957 -- 1980 and also includes an excellent chronology of Williams' (1911 -- 1983) life. John Lahr's new biography, "Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh" (2014) inspired me to read Williams again, both the works which I knew and works with which I was unfamiliar. Lahr offers much insight into Williams life and work and into many of the plays in this volume.
Williams was a romantic, heavily autobiographical writer. His works are lyrical, poetical, and often florid. They explore themes of loneliness, wildness and nonconformity, and the tension between sensuality and repression. A romantic, personal writer must find a way to project his own experiences in order to succeed. At his best, Williams is able to universalize his inner life and to speak to the human condition. During his lifetime and thereafter, many people criticized his works for their lurid sexuality and their violence. Most but not all of Williams' plays have Southern settings, particularly in Mississippi or New Orleans.
The works in this volume fall into roughly two groups. The first group includes the works written between 1957 -- 1961 in the broad, naturalistically romantic voice for which Williams is best remembered. These plays include "Orpheus Descending", "Suddenly Last Summer", "Sweet Bird of Youth" and "The Night of the Iguana" together with the comedy "Period of Adjustment". To this group should be added "The Eccentricities of a Nightingale" which is a rewrite of Williams' earlier "Summer and Smoke" but which stands as a separate work.
The second group of plays consists of works from Williams' long period of decline. The works from this period in this volume include "The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore", "The Mutilated" "Kingdom of Earth" "Small Craft Warnings" . "Out Cry" "Vieux Carre" and "A Lovely Sunday for Creve Coeur". I want to discuss briefly this second group of plays because it was unfamiliar to me with the exception of "Creve Coeur". This group also constitutes a still controversial, neglected part of Williams' writing.
The poor reception of the later work has often been attributed to Williams' heavy deterioration from substance and alcohol abuse, to creative burn out, to a change in public standards from the claimed repression of the 1950s, and to a change in literary styles. These factors are all important, but they tend to overlook some of the strengths of Williams' later works. Most of these plays are in a minimalist, experimental style that owes a great deal to Beckett or Ionesco. They make for difficult reading and acting. With the stylistic change, Williams' themes of loneliness, sexuality, and the tension between flesh and spirit remain alive.
Some of the late plays have survived their initial rejection and have been revived in connection with the 2011 centennial of Williams' birth and thereafter. "Milk Train", a play which straddles mature and late Williams, was revived in 2011 in a production starring Olympia Dukakis. "Out Cry", the most difficult of the works in this collection, has had several recent performances in New York, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, and elsewhere. "Small Craft Warnings" and the two later plays "Vieux Carre" and "Creve Coeur" which return in part to Williams' earlier years also have been performed. Finally, Williams' neglected short play, "The Mutilated" ran off-Broadway in a well-received production starring the underground performers Penny Arcade and Mink Stole. My understanding and appreciation of Williams and of the scope of his work increased by reading these late plays.
In a discussion of the late plays in this volume, New York Times drama critic Charles Isherwood wrote in a February 9, 2011 article, titled "New Light Long After His Sun Set": "it [the late plays selected for the LOA volume] belies the simplistic view that Williams's later work reveals a stark and irreversible decline in his talent. Without question the later plays are less accessible than the dramas of his artistic high summer in the 1940s and 1950s. But they are stamped with the unmistakable voice of the author, albeit raised to a more febrile, scabrous pitch. It is moving, reading them together, to observe with what determination Williams pursued his own artistic path, refusing to return to old formulas even after it became glaringly clear that few were interested in the often weird, fantastic new colors of his work."
I enjoyed revisiting Williams again in this Library of America volume with the insights I gained from Lahr's biography and elsewhere. I have reviewed each of the plays in this volume in greater detail in the individual editions of each work. The Library of America deserves large praise for its commitment to American literature and for making the best of Tennessee Williams accessible to readers.
Robin Friedman
In 2000, the Library of America published two volumes of the plays of Tennessee Williams edited by the Williams' scholars Mel Gussow (1933 -- 2005) and Kenneth Holditch. The second volume of the two, which I am reviewing here, includes 13 plays written between 1957 -- 1980 and also includes an excellent chronology of Williams' (1911 -- 1983) life. John Lahr's new biography, "Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh" (2014) inspired me to read Williams again, both the works which I knew and works with which I was unfamiliar. Lahr offers much insight into Williams life and work and into many of the plays in this volume.
Williams was a romantic, heavily autobiographical writer. His works are lyrical, poetical, and often florid. They explore themes of loneliness, wildness and nonconformity, and the tension between sensuality and repression. A romantic, personal writer must find a way to project his own experiences in order to succeed. At his best, Williams is able to universalize his inner life and to speak to the human condition. During his lifetime and thereafter, many people criticized his works for their lurid sexuality and their violence. Most but not all of Williams' plays have Southern settings, particularly in Mississippi or New Orleans.
The works in this volume fall into roughly two groups. The first group includes the works written between 1957 -- 1961 in the broad, naturalistically romantic voice for which Williams is best remembered. These plays include "Orpheus Descending", "Suddenly Last Summer", "Sweet Bird of Youth" and "The Night of the Iguana" together with the comedy "Period of Adjustment". To this group should be added "The Eccentricities of a Nightingale" which is a rewrite of Williams' earlier "Summer and Smoke" but which stands as a separate work.
The second group of plays consists of works from Williams' long period of decline. The works from this period in this volume include "The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore", "The Mutilated" "Kingdom of Earth" "Small Craft Warnings" . "Out Cry" "Vieux Carre" and "A Lovely Sunday for Creve Coeur". I want to discuss briefly this second group of plays because it was unfamiliar to me with the exception of "Creve Coeur". This group also constitutes a still controversial, neglected part of Williams' writing.
The poor reception of the later work has often been attributed to Williams' heavy deterioration from substance and alcohol abuse, to creative burn out, to a change in public standards from the claimed repression of the 1950s, and to a change in literary styles. These factors are all important, but they tend to overlook some of the strengths of Williams' later works. Most of these plays are in a minimalist, experimental style that owes a great deal to Beckett or Ionesco. They make for difficult reading and acting. With the stylistic change, Williams' themes of loneliness, sexuality, and the tension between flesh and spirit remain alive.
Some of the late plays have survived their initial rejection and have been revived in connection with the 2011 centennial of Williams' birth and thereafter. "Milk Train", a play which straddles mature and late Williams, was revived in 2011 in a production starring Olympia Dukakis. "Out Cry", the most difficult of the works in this collection, has had several recent performances in New York, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, and elsewhere. "Small Craft Warnings" and the two later plays "Vieux Carre" and "Creve Coeur" which return in part to Williams' earlier years also have been performed. Finally, Williams' neglected short play, "The Mutilated" ran off-Broadway in a well-received production starring the underground performers Penny Arcade and Mink Stole. My understanding and appreciation of Williams and of the scope of his work increased by reading these late plays.
In a discussion of the late plays in this volume, New York Times drama critic Charles Isherwood wrote in a February 9, 2011 article, titled "New Light Long After His Sun Set": "it [the late plays selected for the LOA volume] belies the simplistic view that Williams's later work reveals a stark and irreversible decline in his talent. Without question the later plays are less accessible than the dramas of his artistic high summer in the 1940s and 1950s. But they are stamped with the unmistakable voice of the author, albeit raised to a more febrile, scabrous pitch. It is moving, reading them together, to observe with what determination Williams pursued his own artistic path, refusing to return to old formulas even after it became glaringly clear that few were interested in the often weird, fantastic new colors of his work."
I enjoyed revisiting Williams again in this Library of America volume with the insights I gained from Lahr's biography and elsewhere. I have reviewed each of the plays in this volume in greater detail in the individual editions of each work. The Library of America deserves large praise for its commitment to American literature and for making the best of Tennessee Williams accessible to readers.
Robin Friedman
January 29, 2023
Tennessee Williams In The Library of America -- 2
In 2000, the Library of America published two volumes of the plays of Tennessee Williams edited by the Williams' scholars Mel Gussow (1933 -- 2005) and Kenneth Holditch. The second volume of the two, which I am reviewing here, includes 13 plays written between 1957 -- 1980 and also includes an excellent chronology of Williams' (1911 -- 1983) life. John Lahr's new biography, "Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh" (2014) inspired me to read Williams again, both the works which I knew and works with which I was unfamiliar. Lahr offers much insight into Williams life and work and into many of the plays in this volume.
Williams was a romantic, heavily autobiographical writer. His works are lyrical, poetical, and often florid. They explore themes of loneliness, wildness and nonconformity, and the tension between sensuality and repression. A romantic, personal writer must find a way to project his own experiences in order to succeed. At his best, Williams is able to universalize his inner life and to speak to the human condition. During his lifetime and thereafter, many people criticized his works for their lurid sexuality and their violence. Most but not all of Williams' plays have Southern settings, particularly in Mississippi or New Orleans.
The works in this volume fall into roughly two groups. The first group includes the works written between 1957 -- 1961 in the broad, naturalistically romantic voice for which Williams is best remembered. These plays include "Orpheus Descending", "Suddenly Last Summer", "Sweet Bird of Youth" and "The Night of the Iguana" together with the comedy "Period of Adjustment". To this group should be added "The Eccentricities of a Nightingale" which is a rewrite of Williams' earlier "Summer and Smoke" but which stands as a separate work.
The second group of plays consists of works from Williams' long period of decline. The works from this period in this volume include "The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore", "The Mutilated" "Kingdom of Earth" "Small Craft Warnings" . "Out Cry" "Vieux Carre" and "A Lovely Sunday for Creve Coeur". I want to discuss briefly this second group of plays because it was unfamiliar to me with the exception of "Creve Coeur". This group also constitutes a still controversial, neglected part of Williams' writing.
The poor reception of the later work has often been attributed to Williams' heavy deterioration from substance and alcohol abuse, to creative burn
out, to a change in public standards from the claimed repression of the 1950s, and to a change in literary styles. These factors are all important, but they tend to overlook some of the strengths of Williams' later works. Most of these plays are in a minimalist, experimental style that owes a great deal to Beckett or Ionesco. They make for difficult reading and acting. With the stylistic change, Williams' themes of loneliness, sexuality, and the tension between flesh and spirit remain alive.
Some of the late plays have survived their initial rejection and have been revived in connection with the 2011 centennial of Williams' birth and thereafter. "Milk Train", a play which straddles mature and late Williams, was revived in 2011 in a production starring Olympia Dukakis. "Out Cry", the most difficult of the works in this collection, has had several recent performances in New York, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, and elsewhere. "Small Craft Warnings" and the two later plays "Vieux Carre" and "Creve Coeur" which return in part to Williams' earlier years also have been performed. Finally, Williams' neglected short play, "The Mutilated" ran off-Broadway in a well-received production starring the underground performers Penny Arcade and Mink Stole. My understanding and appreciation of Williams and of the scope of his work increased by reading these late plays.
In a discussion of the late plays in this volume, New York Times drama critic Charles Isherwood wrote in a February 9, 2011 article, titled "New Light Long After His Sun Set": "it [the late plays selected for the LOA volume] belies the simplistic view that Williams's later work reveals a stark and irreversible decline in his talent. Without question the later plays are less accessible than the dramas of his artistic high summer in the 1940s and 1950s. But they are stamped with the unmistakable voice of the author, albeit raised to a more febrile, scabrous pitch. It is moving, reading them together, to observe with what determination Williams pursued his own artistic path, refusing to return to old formulas even after it became glaringly clear that few were interested in the often weird, fantastic new colors of his work."
I enjoyed revisiting Williams again in this Library of America volume with the insights I gained from Lahr's biography and elsewhere. I have revived each of the plays in this volume in greater detail in the individual editions of each work. The Library of America deserves high praise for its commitment to American literature and for making the best of Tennessee Williams accessible to readers.
Robin Friedman
In 2000, the Library of America published two volumes of the plays of Tennessee Williams edited by the Williams' scholars Mel Gussow (1933 -- 2005) and Kenneth Holditch. The second volume of the two, which I am reviewing here, includes 13 plays written between 1957 -- 1980 and also includes an excellent chronology of Williams' (1911 -- 1983) life. John Lahr's new biography, "Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh" (2014) inspired me to read Williams again, both the works which I knew and works with which I was unfamiliar. Lahr offers much insight into Williams life and work and into many of the plays in this volume.
Williams was a romantic, heavily autobiographical writer. His works are lyrical, poetical, and often florid. They explore themes of loneliness, wildness and nonconformity, and the tension between sensuality and repression. A romantic, personal writer must find a way to project his own experiences in order to succeed. At his best, Williams is able to universalize his inner life and to speak to the human condition. During his lifetime and thereafter, many people criticized his works for their lurid sexuality and their violence. Most but not all of Williams' plays have Southern settings, particularly in Mississippi or New Orleans.
The works in this volume fall into roughly two groups. The first group includes the works written between 1957 -- 1961 in the broad, naturalistically romantic voice for which Williams is best remembered. These plays include "Orpheus Descending", "Suddenly Last Summer", "Sweet Bird of Youth" and "The Night of the Iguana" together with the comedy "Period of Adjustment". To this group should be added "The Eccentricities of a Nightingale" which is a rewrite of Williams' earlier "Summer and Smoke" but which stands as a separate work.
The second group of plays consists of works from Williams' long period of decline. The works from this period in this volume include "The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore", "The Mutilated" "Kingdom of Earth" "Small Craft Warnings" . "Out Cry" "Vieux Carre" and "A Lovely Sunday for Creve Coeur". I want to discuss briefly this second group of plays because it was unfamiliar to me with the exception of "Creve Coeur". This group also constitutes a still controversial, neglected part of Williams' writing.
The poor reception of the later work has often been attributed to Williams' heavy deterioration from substance and alcohol abuse, to creative burn
out, to a change in public standards from the claimed repression of the 1950s, and to a change in literary styles. These factors are all important, but they tend to overlook some of the strengths of Williams' later works. Most of these plays are in a minimalist, experimental style that owes a great deal to Beckett or Ionesco. They make for difficult reading and acting. With the stylistic change, Williams' themes of loneliness, sexuality, and the tension between flesh and spirit remain alive.
Some of the late plays have survived their initial rejection and have been revived in connection with the 2011 centennial of Williams' birth and thereafter. "Milk Train", a play which straddles mature and late Williams, was revived in 2011 in a production starring Olympia Dukakis. "Out Cry", the most difficult of the works in this collection, has had several recent performances in New York, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, and elsewhere. "Small Craft Warnings" and the two later plays "Vieux Carre" and "Creve Coeur" which return in part to Williams' earlier years also have been performed. Finally, Williams' neglected short play, "The Mutilated" ran off-Broadway in a well-received production starring the underground performers Penny Arcade and Mink Stole. My understanding and appreciation of Williams and of the scope of his work increased by reading these late plays.
In a discussion of the late plays in this volume, New York Times drama critic Charles Isherwood wrote in a February 9, 2011 article, titled "New Light Long After His Sun Set": "it [the late plays selected for the LOA volume] belies the simplistic view that Williams's later work reveals a stark and irreversible decline in his talent. Without question the later plays are less accessible than the dramas of his artistic high summer in the 1940s and 1950s. But they are stamped with the unmistakable voice of the author, albeit raised to a more febrile, scabrous pitch. It is moving, reading them together, to observe with what determination Williams pursued his own artistic path, refusing to return to old formulas even after it became glaringly clear that few were interested in the often weird, fantastic new colors of his work."
I enjoyed revisiting Williams again in this Library of America volume with the insights I gained from Lahr's biography and elsewhere. I have revived each of the plays in this volume in greater detail in the individual editions of each work. The Library of America deserves high praise for its commitment to American literature and for making the best of Tennessee Williams accessible to readers.
Robin Friedman
July 27, 2018
I really have enjoyed Tennessee Williams plays. He can strike a pretty good balance in most of them of the absurd, the tragic and the evil and the good. Out Cry was probably my favorite out of the bunch, there was just something about it that made it very entrancing.
I can see why he is so widely studied in schools.
I can see why he is so widely studied in schools.
May 25, 2023
DNF at about 60%
Too much Williams. I'm not a die hard fan and I enjoy the older ones that have been adapted to films, from Williams golden age. His later plays are not as good.
Too much Williams. I'm not a die hard fan and I enjoy the older ones that have been adapted to films, from Williams golden age. His later plays are not as good.
May 3, 2018
My first introduction to Tennessee Williams was seeing Cat on a Hot Tin Roof as a child, and my adoration for his plays has continued long into adulthood. Recently, I embarked on an endeavor to read all of his collected plays (two volumes), and I realized that a lifetime's worth of experience has changed my perspective. While Not about Nightingales shows Williams ahead of his time in exposing the horrors of prison life, so many of his plays reveal a misogyny that was either reflective of the time, his own views, or both. For an alternative critique of A Streetcar Named Desire that deviates from the usual pablum, I recommend Kathleen Lant's essay (not creatively named) A Streetcar Named Misogyny. https://ontheroad29.wikispaces.com/fi...
I found this read to be a thoroughly depressing one, though my admiration for Williams' undeniable talent remains. My thoughts about his works will remain colored by reading these plays one after another, where pitiable, tragic female characters are trotted out relentlessly.
I found this read to be a thoroughly depressing one, though my admiration for Williams' undeniable talent remains. My thoughts about his works will remain colored by reading these plays one after another, where pitiable, tragic female characters are trotted out relentlessly.
Read
January 29, 2021The second and final volume of “The Collected Plays of Tennessee Williams” from Library of America has highs and lows, like the first volume, and Tennessee’s flame didn’t burn very brightly in the latter part of his career. But there are still some splendid plays here, including “Suddenly, Last Summer” and “Sweet Bird of Youth” and “The Night of the Iguana,” and even lesser pieces like “The Eccentricities of a Nightingale” and “The Milk Train Doesn’t Stop Here Anymore” have very fine qualities. Reencountering his work is always a pleasure, and working my way through these volumes has been a real treat.
April 2, 2020
I love Tennessee Williams. I love his lyricism, his dark humor, the way he unravels his characters to either continue in or free themselves from the depravity that binds them. I love how he balances lightness and heavy truth.
I do prefer and connect with his earlier works more than his later ones.
My favorites from this collection:
ORPHEUS DESCENDING (probably my all time favorite)
SUDDENLY LAST SUMMER
NIGHT OF THE IGUANA
VIEUX CARRE
I do prefer and connect with his earlier works more than his later ones.
My favorites from this collection:
ORPHEUS DESCENDING (probably my all time favorite)
SUDDENLY LAST SUMMER
NIGHT OF THE IGUANA
VIEUX CARRE
July 12, 2010
This was a Christmas present from my husband from about ten years ago. After reading a review of the release of the DVDs The Fugitive Kind and The Last of the Mobile Hot Shots, both based on Williamsp plays, I decided to read some of the many plays I had skipped over. I forgot how much I used to love his writing.
November 17, 2017
Read selected plays for OLLI Class: Suddenly Last Summer, Period of Adjustment.
January 27, 2023
Great literature, gripping drama, edgy characters. Read alongside movies. Very satisfying and somewhat surprising.
September 22, 2025
Favorite Quote = “…life isn’t mathematics.”
Secret Places of the Heart
Secret Places of the Heart
July 5, 2023
Yes, I just read 13 TW plays in a row. The sum is greater than the individual parts. There really is no "Streetcar" here, but there are three very good plays:
Suddenly, Last Summer - 4 stars (His most bizarre, imo, and the film is even better)
Night of the Iguana - 4 (Film is even better)
Kingdom of Earth - 4
The rest:
Orpheus Descending, Milk Train, Mutilated, Out Cry, Vieux Carre - 3
Sweet Bird, Period of Adjustment, Small Craft, Lovely Sunday - 2
Eccentricities (Summer and Smoke redo) - (still) 1 star
A must read for TW fans. (All reviewed separately)
Suddenly, Last Summer - 4 stars (His most bizarre, imo, and the film is even better)
Night of the Iguana - 4 (Film is even better)
Kingdom of Earth - 4
The rest:
Orpheus Descending, Milk Train, Mutilated, Out Cry, Vieux Carre - 3
Sweet Bird, Period of Adjustment, Small Craft, Lovely Sunday - 2
Eccentricities (Summer and Smoke redo) - (still) 1 star
A must read for TW fans. (All reviewed separately)
October 27, 2010
Just finished "Night of the Iguana." I have ordered the movie from Netflix, so I am eager to see the film treatment of the story. I have both volumes of this and read "Suddenly Last Summer" previously. That's my next Netflix disc. I LOVE literary/cinema tie-ins!
July 9, 2010
I have not read all the plays within this book since it was for a class. However, I really enjoyed reading Williams' work. These plays were part of his later works and considered bad by a lot of critics at the time. However, I see an appeal to them in their surrealist presentation.
June 25, 2015
One of the great poets of the stage! His plays are some of my favorite from the 20th Century. I loved how he treated relationships (even those his women are oftentimes pitiful, they at least are interesting).
June 19, 2010
Stunning plays by one of the greatest authors to come out of the American South.
Want to read
November 23, 2010Reading Orpheus Descending--with further designs on Suddenly Last Summer... and another one, I can't think of right now
April 26, 2012
Amazing.
August 4, 2012
Just read them all. Better yet, go see them at the theatre.
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews