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The Rose Tatoo & Camino Real
The Rose Tattoo; Camino Penguin Plays PL21
233 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1958
About the author
Tennessee Williams
780 books3,859 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 - 3 of 3 reviews
September 15, 2022
I would actually rate the rose tattoo 4 stars and Camino Real 2 stars*
Firstly, I’d like to know which drugs williams was on when he wrote camino real and where can i find some. Maybe if i re-read it after doing some it would make sense. Genuinely insane. I tried throughout to consider analogies it could be or make some kind of sense of the plot and characters but in the end i had to give up. none of it makes any sense?! I’m not sure i could tell you a single thing that happened in it…
The Rose Tattoo, however, very entertaining! some classic themes: insanity, love, the devil, goats… All the good stuff!! But seriously was very good and the characters were well developed and interesting.
Firstly, I’d like to know which drugs williams was on when he wrote camino real and where can i find some. Maybe if i re-read it after doing some it would make sense. Genuinely insane. I tried throughout to consider analogies it could be or make some kind of sense of the plot and characters but in the end i had to give up. none of it makes any sense?! I’m not sure i could tell you a single thing that happened in it…
The Rose Tattoo, however, very entertaining! some classic themes: insanity, love, the devil, goats… All the good stuff!! But seriously was very good and the characters were well developed and interesting.
February 19, 2026
I love Tennessee Williams’ work - but these are the only two of his plays I’ve really had to force myself to get through. They’re eyebleedingly tedious in different ways.
TRT feels like a C-grade reworking of much of the Glass Menagerie and parts of Streetcar & Sweet Bird of Youth. The writing is sloppy and feels as if he’s dialling it in. The only noteworthy point is that - unlike Williams’ other plays - it ends (relatively) happily. Unfortunately, unlike most of Williams’ other plays, it’s not great. I’d give this 2 stars at the most.
CR was a bizarre read. I’m not against expressionism, surrealism and absurdism (indeed, some of my favourite plays are by Treadwell, O’Neill, Albee & Beckett) but this just felt as if it was trying too hard to be something it wasn’t.
There’s a reason we don’t remember AA Milne and James Hilton for their detective stories or Agatha Christie for her ghost and romance stories. We don’t remember Conan Doyle for his sci-fi or Ray Bradbury for his horror stories. Absurdism, surrealism and expressionism aren’t what Williams is known for and rightly so. CR tries so hard to tick off elements of all three genres that it falls all the more flat. This is maybe 2 and a half stars because TW was at least trying something different.
If you’re a fan of Tennessee Williams and are the completionist type, then worth a read if you come across this. Otherwise there are so, so many more of his other plays and short stories worth reading before you need to get to these. If they weren’t written by him there’s absolutely no way they’d have been performed on Broadway, let alone published.
TRT feels like a C-grade reworking of much of the Glass Menagerie and parts of Streetcar & Sweet Bird of Youth. The writing is sloppy and feels as if he’s dialling it in. The only noteworthy point is that - unlike Williams’ other plays - it ends (relatively) happily. Unfortunately, unlike most of Williams’ other plays, it’s not great. I’d give this 2 stars at the most.
CR was a bizarre read. I’m not against expressionism, surrealism and absurdism (indeed, some of my favourite plays are by Treadwell, O’Neill, Albee & Beckett) but this just felt as if it was trying too hard to be something it wasn’t.
There’s a reason we don’t remember AA Milne and James Hilton for their detective stories or Agatha Christie for her ghost and romance stories. We don’t remember Conan Doyle for his sci-fi or Ray Bradbury for his horror stories. Absurdism, surrealism and expressionism aren’t what Williams is known for and rightly so. CR tries so hard to tick off elements of all three genres that it falls all the more flat. This is maybe 2 and a half stars because TW was at least trying something different.
If you’re a fan of Tennessee Williams and are the completionist type, then worth a read if you come across this. Otherwise there are so, so many more of his other plays and short stories worth reading before you need to get to these. If they weren’t written by him there’s absolutely no way they’d have been performed on Broadway, let alone published.
October 10, 2012
Two masterpieces of Tennessee Williams .. Wanna see them on theater
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews