Suddenly Last Summer and Other Plays

by Tennessee Williams

These three dramatic works by Tennessee Williams explore the darker side of human nature and are haunted by a sense of isolation and regret. "Suddenly Last Summer" is the starkly told story of Catherine, who seemingly goes insane after her cousin Sebastian dies in grisly circumstances on a trip to Europe. "The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore" is a passionate examination of a wealthy old woman as she recounts her memories in the face of death, while in "Small Craft Warnings" a motley group of people - including a blowsy beautician, a discredited alcoholic doctor, a vulnerable waif and two gay men - sit around a seedy bar on the Californian coast, each contemplating their own desperate fate.

Genres: Plays, Classics, Drama, Fiction, Theatre, Ebooks, American Fiction

214 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 2010

About the author

Thomas 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

Reviews

[Dary · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yes, once, quite a long while ago, I was often startled by the sense of being alive, of being myself, living! . . . Whenever I would feel this . . . feeling, this . . . shock of . . . what? . . . self-realization? . . . I would be stunned, I would be thunderstruck by it. And by the existence of everything that exists, I'd be lightningstruck with astonishment . . . it would do more than astound me, it would give me a feeling of panic, the sudden sense of . . . I suppose it was like an epileptic seizure, except that I didn't fall to the ground in convulsions; no, I'd be more apt to try to lose myself in a crowd on a street until the seizure was finished . . .

all three of these plays were very entertaining and the third one was my favorite ("Small Craft Warning"), because reading about sad alcoholics is very fun to me; but the other two were great as well ("Suddenly Last Summer" and "The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore")

[Lauren · Rating 3 out of 5]

Suddenly Last Summer - 4/5
The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore - 3/5
Small Craft Warning - 2/5

Overall rating - 3/5

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

My only real quibble with this was that I want more.

[iris and her library · Rating 4 out of 5]

suddenly last summer 3*
the milktrain doesn't stop here anymore 5*
small craft warnings 4*

[eva ⚘ · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 ⭐

[Jack Robinson · Rating 5 out of 5]

As there are three separate and very different plays in this collection I felt it best to rate them individually:
Suddenly Last Summer - 5 Stars, my favourite Tennessee Williams play by far

The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore - 3 Stars, I enjoyed it but it wasn't as memorable as the others I've read. The characters Sissy and Connie were brilliantly written

Small Craft Warnings - 4 Stars, I'd never heard of this play and I found it so interesting! Definitely a hidden gem and worth the read!

[Achilleas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tormented souls all over the place, and Tennessee Williams reciting their lives.

"Everyone needs one beautiful thing in the course of a lifetime to save the heart from corruption."

[Erik · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Suddenly Last Summer," "This Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore," and "Small Craft Warnings" offer three brief glimpses into the teetering, changing, and left-behind mind of Tennessee Williams. Each play, written in a different decade (50s, 60s, and 70s, respectively) represents a playwright trying to grapple with a world that isn't what it was when he wrote "The Glass Menagerie."

"Suddenly Last Summer" tells the story of a New Orleans mother trying to punish her niece for her role in her son's death, but what it reveals is the wickedness and perversion that attends to an individual unwilling to accept their own mortality.

"This Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore" grapples with many of the same themes: refusal to accept death amidst its obvious encroachment. But unlike Williams' past plays, this one is sterile - still dark but with all the grunge and grime of Southern Goth removed.

And finally, "Small Craft Warnings" offers a playwrights attempts to bring his darkened mood to a period when pop and americana had gilded over the darkness of the former decades. Williams tells the story of a group of friends in a bar in Southern California. None of them fit in and none of them quite make sense as they fight, drunkenly, with each other for love, money, and a sense of grounding.

[Léa Moreau · Rating 3 out of 5]

Suddenly Last Summer est une bonne pièce même si elle contient certain nombre d'invraisemblances. Elle traite de manière puissante le thème de la folie et de la cruauté mais aussi celui du pouvoir de l'argent et de la cupidité. Elle ne vaut cependant pas les Classiques de Tennessee Williams.

Les deux pièces suivantes "The Milk train doesn't stop here anymore" et "Small Craft Warnings" revêtent, quant à elles, peu d'intérêt.

[Isabelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Review of 'Suddenly Last Summer'; It could have been an interesting story if the plot had been executed better. It felt messy and not finished, so reading the last sentence felt a bit like a mix-up. I also think the characters could have been more fully developed. Doctor 'Sugar' is an intriguing character, but the reader barely gets to know him. Same goes for Catharine. I don't know, maybe this story is not suited for a play and should instead have been written as a novel.

[Bailee Walsh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Suddenly Last Summer: 3.5/5 stars
The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore: 4/5 stars
Small Craft Warnings: 2/5 stars

Averaging that out makes it 3/5 stars for this collection, but because The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore is a majority of the physical book and really good, I'm leaning more towards a 3.5/5 stars overall for the collection.

[David Jay · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think I love every word Tennessee Williams has ever written.
This is incredible and I didn't realize I had never read it (I've seen the movie--completely whitewashed by the censors, though still terrific--countless times).
Amazing that this script is still able to shock even 60+ years after it was written.

[Sam T · Rating 5 out of 5]

An interesting mix of three plays which all vary in tone and purpose. Williams has a great use of language and insight into the human mind. This adds to thoroughly enjoyable and unique characters across all the plays. I also enjoyed the eccentricity to the themes and characters too. I shall seek out more of his work.

[Adelina]

Suddenly Last Summer is a new Tennessee favourite of mine. ★★★★

The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore was intriguing and I'm sad the film adaptation was so bad. ★★★

Small Craft Warnings was not my thing at all. ★

[Christina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Suddenly Last Summer: 4
The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore: 3
Small Craft Warnings: 2.5

[kajsa · Rating 4 out of 5]

suddenly last summer: 4/5
the milk train doesn't stop here anymore: 3/5
small craft warning: 3.5/5

[Jased · Rating 5 out of 5]

A dark look at human behaviour and finding the truth

[U · Rating 4 out of 5]

Small Craft Warning- 4 stars
The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore-3. 5
Suddenly Last Summer - 5 stars
The Milk Train doesn't Stop Here Anymore

[Tara ~ · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well, that was depressing.

[Bob · Rating 3 out of 5]

Suddenly Last Summer - 5 stars plus - My favorite TW
Milk Train - 3 stars - some interesting character work, but not really a play.
Small Craft Warnings - 1 star. I had to start scanning it was so blah. What happens? Nothing. I may try it again... but this is my least favorite TX so far. Again maybe I'll be in a better place for it some time in the future.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

SLS read for English lit Gothic module.

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

This edition contains three plays by America's greatest playwright, Tennessee Williams: Suddenly Last Summer, The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore, and Small Craft Warning. All three are relatively short one-act plays that each deal with the darker sides of human nature and are tinged throughout with regret and isolation.

Suddenly Last Summer, probably my favourite, deals with Catherine who seemingly is insane after the death of her cousin in Europe. The tension between Catherine and her mother and brother on the one side, and her aunt on the other, is expertly done and the climax is well developed.

The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore deals with a wealthy old woman and her last few days - how she deals with her memories and those around her as she is dying. It is a modernist play, with the stage assistants taking a role in the play, but ultimately it left me feeling rather empty - the main character is unlikeable and brash, but then Williams is good at creating starkly realistic characters.

The last play, Small Craft Warnings, is set in a seedy bar on the Californian coast as a motely crew of characters each deal with their own desperate fate. This is also one I liked as the conflict between the characters was well-developed and realistic, and the characters themselves well-realised.

Overall, this is a fine collection of one-act plays by Williams and a good addition to a connoisseur of Williams' plays. It however is not the place to start for someone looking for more of Williams' well-known plays.

[Chris Gager · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book I read was the play or screenplay for the movie accompanied by some stills from the movie. I was mostly interested in pictures of Liz but I did read some of it as I was interested in learning the fate of her odious brother. Date read is a guess.

[Beth Shields-Szostak]

4-in-1 Anthology