Tennessee Williams at 100, Two Early Impressions: Vieux Carré from the Wooster Group and Streetcar at Williams, by Michael Miller

From the Wooster Group's Production of Tennessee Williams' Vieux Carré

There can be no doubt that Tennessee Williams was the preeminent American playwright of his time—at least for a period which, sadly, covered only eighteen years of his life, beginning with his first great Broadway success, "The Glass Menagerie" in 1944 and ending with his last great Broadway success, "The Night of the Iguana," in 1962. Between those years Williams wrote a series of profound, deeply-affecting works, in which a heady atmosphere originating from his deep southern origins proved irresistable to New York critics and audiences, not to mention certain Hollywood producers and enough people in-between to bring him wealth and celebrity. After "Night of the Iguana," it all ended as swiftly as it began. His later productions irritated critics and audiences with their lush language and melodrama, if it made much of an impression on them at all. The reasons are clear enough: there was a marked decline in the quality of his work, brought on by an excess of drugs and alcohol. On the other hand, it's worth remembering that the early sixties was a time of important changes in society and taste, which favored the cold, jagged edges of, to name one example, Edward Albee, whose career was reaching its peak in "Who's Afraid of Virgina Woolf" just at that time. Williams spent the last two decades of a life which extended on to 1983 as a marginal figure in the theatrical world, most directly engaged in struggling to survive his demons.

Read the full review on the The Berkshire Review, an International journal for the Arts

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