Tennessee Williams: Everyone Else Is an Audience

by Ronald Hayman

Few playwrights write as much of their lives into every work as did Tennessee Williams, and few had lives that were so obviously theatrical. Growing up amid abusive alcoholism, genteel posturing, and the incipient madness of his beloved sister, Rose, Williams produced plays in which violence exploded into rape, castration, and even cannibalism, projecting dramatic personal traumas. In this frank, compelling study, the distinguished biographer and critic Ronald Hayman explores the intersection of biography and art in one of the most exuberantly autobiographical dramatists of the American theater. By the time he died, in 1983, Williams’ reputation had seriously declined. More than twenty years of drug and alcohol addiction, coupled with devastating openness about his promiscuous homosexuality, had all but destroyed one of America’s greatest playwrights, and Williams’ new works were increasingly unsuccessful. In recent years, however, Broadway revivals and amateur productions have testified to his enduring greatness as one of the shapers of the American theater. The major plays such as The Glass Menagerie, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof , and A Streetcar Named Desire, never disappeared from American theatrical consciousness. Their heroes―Tom Wingfield, Brick Pollitt, even Blanch Du Bois―are portraits of the artist as a very troubled man. Hayman explores the life and writings of Tennessee Williams and shows how they were linked. More than any previous biographer, he unmasks the compulsive, driven man behind the characters and lays bare the pain that engendered Williams’ violent apocalypses. Tennessee Williams will change the way lovers of drama experience and understand some of Williams’ finest achievements.

Genres: Biography

268 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1994

About the author

Ronald Hayman is a critic, dramatist, director and writer best known for his biographies.

Reviews

[Ella Holmes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Favourite Playwright.

[Robin · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wish there was a setting in Goodreads for 'partly-read". I read about half of this book in preparation for a pre-performance talk before a production of Glass Menagerie at California Shakespeare Theatre. I got a couple of good quotes from it, and a bit of a sense of Williams, but I decided not to finish it. I realized I wasn't getting a very good sense of the man, and that the book wasn't painting a very good picture.

[Giuseppe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good read. Very interesting things mentioned about his early life, family, and professional life. Great photographs inside as well. I'll deduct a star because after reading the comments section here I'm wondering what was true, what was false, and what was and/or was not well researched. However it was enjoyable and easy to read.

[Jason Mellin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow, what a character. A good biography, but Williams' own peripatetic lifestyle can make for a tiresome read. The author's association of Williams' life with his work can alternate between revealingly trenchant and arguably thin. But the overall portrait of ruined genius is compelling, gripping even, and an illuminating if occasionally frustrating read.

[Jay Clifton · Rating 2 out of 5]

Quite disappointing. Hayman gives the facts of Williams life and work but seems to have no visible passion for his subject. The book gets merits, at around 280 pages, for not being over-extended, as so many are. But the superficial analysis of the playwright's work (every play is a re-write of TW's family trauma or a cry of self-pity), the lack of cultural context (World War 2 is barely mentioned, nor the innovations of Sixties American theatre), and the lack of original reasearch by the writer (there is only one footnote in the entire index that refers to a conversation between the biographer and an associate of Tennessee Williams) makes for a plodding, 'so what' kind of read, especially after the story goes beyond about 1955, from wherein Hayman seems to go along with the critical consensus of the time that TW was a creatively spent force. Hayman takes a lot of the criticism of Tennessee Williams at face value, particularly Gore Vidal's comment that he had no sense of history other than his own and relied on a kind of romantic genius to get him through. Apart from the undeniable importance on TW of the work of D.H. Lawrence and the playwrights Ibsen and Strindberg, Hayman seems blind to other significant literary influences that run quite keenly through TW's work (such as the Orpheus legend that gives 'Orpheus Descending' its title-- there are quite a few subtle parallels between the different versions of the legend and the play, beyond the obvious guitar/lyre, troubador/singer parallel). It may be true that TW was an unlikeable character-- his treatment of his lovers, particularly longtime companion Frank Merlo, whom he abandoned to a state hospital for a time when Merlo became terminally ill, is morally dubious to say the least. But Hayman's focus on TW's drink and drug addictions, his erratic behaviour and mistreatment of friends, and his tendency towards self-pity, without really offering any suggestion of redeeming characteristics as either an artist or a person, seems overly-biased against the writer and obscures the writer's achievements (Hayman doesn't seem to have found merit in anything TW wrote after 'A Streetcar Named Desire'). The fact that Hayman's title for the book is taken from a line in a hatchet-piece on TW by fromer friend Truman Capote in bitchy mood suggests where Hayman's own feeling lay. Informative to a point, but not one to really sink your teeth into (some great photographs though).

[Bobby · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kind of a hybrid between biography and literary criticism. Hayman's thesis is that Williams's personal life influenced and manifested itself in all of his works, and therefore he gives us an abbreviated synopsis of Tennessee's life as it pertains to certain major plays. But it's not a biography per se because it's not trying to be comprehensive, and he does state his opinion on lots of subjects, criticizing CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF most notably. The arguments for certain true events influencing certain plot points are not always fully explored, and the editing in general is pretty haphazard (an astounding amount of typos for a professionally published book). But it's interesting if you're into Williams and are interested in his turbulent personal life and prolific career.

[j_ay · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sort of an abbreviated biography.

[Jimmy R · Rating 1 out of 5]

I've had this book on my shelf for years but have never managed to get through it. There are far, far better bios of Tenn.

I find the following phrase from the summary offensive, homophobic and senseless:

"...devastating openness about his promiscuous homosexuality...had all but destroyed one of America’s greatest playwrights"

Did being homosexual "destroy" him, or was it his promiscuity? Or was it his "devastating openness" about it? Would it have been less destructive if he'd not been open about his sexuality, if he'd been sneaky and closeted? I'm not quite sure how one can be devastatingly open, but I have seen many instances where not being open and honest has destroyed lives.