The Theatre of Tennessee Williams

This book is open access and available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. It is funded by Knowledge Unlatched.Perfect for students of English Literature, Theatre Studies and American Studies at college and university, provides a lucid and stimulating analysis of Willams'' dramatic work by one of America''s leading scholars. With the centennial of his birth celebrated amid a flurry of conferences devoted to his work in 2011, and his plays a central part of any literature and drama curriculum and uibiquitous in theatre repertoires, he remains a giant of twentieth century literature and drama.In Brenda Murphy''s major study of his work she examines his life and career and provides an analysis of more than a score of his key plays, including in-depth studies of major works such as A Streetcar Named Desire , The Glass Menagerie , Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and others. She traces the artist figure who features in many of Williams'' plays to broaden the discussion beyond the normal reference points.As with other volumes in Methuen Drama''s Critical Companions series, this book features too essays by Bruce McConachie, John S. Bak, Felicia Hardison Londre and Annette Saddik, offering perspectives on different aspects of Williams'' work that will assist students in their own critical thinking.>

List of contents

Acknowledgments
Abbreviations
Introduction
1 The 1930s Plays: The Magic Tower, Candles to the Sun, Fugitive Kind, Not About Nightingales, Spring Storm, Stairs to the Roof
2 Battle of Angels and Orpheus Descending
3 The Glass Menagerie
4 Summer and Smoke and Eccentricities of a Nightingale
5 A Streetcar Named Desire
6 Camino Real
7 Cat on Hot Tin Roof
8 Suddenly Last Summer and Sweet Bird of Youth
9 The Night of the Iguana
10 The Later Plays, 1961-1983: The Two-Character Play/Outcry, The Gnädiges Fräulein, Clothes for a Summer Hotel, The Mutilated, Small Craft Warnings, Vieux Carré, Something Cloudy, Something Clear
11. Critical Perspectives
All in the timing: the meanings of Streetcar in 1947 and 1951 by Bruce McConachie (University of Pittsburgh, USA)
A broken romance: Tennessee Williams and America's mid-century theatre culture by John S. Bak (Université de Lorraine, France)
'A vast traumatic eye': culture absorbed and refigured in Tennessee Williams's transitional plays by Felicia Hardison Londré (University of Missouri, Kansas City, USA)
'There's something not natural here': grotesque ambiguities in Kingdom of Earth, A Cavalier for Milady, and A House Not Meant to Stand by Annette Saddik (City University of New York, USA)
Chronology
Further reading
Index
Notes on contributors

About the author

Brenda Murphy is Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor of English at the University of Connecticut, where she has taught since 1989, following fourteen years as a faculty member and administrator at St Lawrence University. She is the author of many articles, books, and reviews on drama and American literature.BRUCE MCCONACHIE is Professor of Theatre Arts and Performance Studies at the University of Pittsburgh, USA.Felicia Hardison Londré is Curators’ Distinguished Professor of Theatre at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, USA. She was elected to The College of Fellows of the American Theatre in 1999 and served a term (2012-14) as Dean. Her fifteen books include the George Freedly Memorial Award-winning The Enchanted Years of the Stage: Kansas City at the Crossroads of American Theatre, 1890-1930; she is the author of Modern American Drama: Playwriting in the 1940s: Voices, Documents, New Interpretations and editor of The Great European Stage Directors Volume 7: Barrault, Mnouchkine, Stein (both Methuen Drama, 2018).

Summary

The Theatre of Tennessee Williams provides a stimulating analysis of the work of this giant of twentieth century American theatre whose work remains central to curriculums and theatre repertoires. It combines an analysis of all of his work by American scholar Brenda Murphy with interviews and a number of criticial essays.

Report

[Murphy] brings together ... useful information from Williams' work, writings and correspondence to make this a valuable academic work for anyone studying the playwright or American theatre ... A useful and well-written work David Chadderton British Theatre Guide

Product details

• Authors: Bruce McConachie, Brenda Murphy, Murphy Brenda
• Publisher: Methuen Drama
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 16.01.2014
• EAN: 9781408145432
• ISBN: 978-1-4081-4543-2
• No. of pages: 320
• Series: Methuen Drama; Critical Companions; Critical Companions
• Subject: Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies > English linguistics / literary studies