{"id":8842,"date":"2021-02-17T08:10:49","date_gmt":"2021-02-17T13:10:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=8842"},"modified":"2021-03-03T08:49:19","modified_gmt":"2021-03-03T13:49:19","slug":"tennessee-williams-how-to-see","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=8842","title":{"rendered":"Tennessee Williams: How To See"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\u201cThe Fugitive Kind\u201d is the framework Bonnie J. Monte, is using for her \u201cBook Club\u201d discussions of Tennessee Williams (1911-1983) and his work. Monte is the artistic director of the Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey, and the next Book Club discussion group will focus on Shakespeare\u2019s Henry IV, both parts, and Henry V, the stirring encomium to the Battle of Agincourt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She chose \u201cthe fugitive kind,\u201d because she believes what she calls Williams\u2019s \u201cvast and complex universe\u201d is liberally peopled with a tribe of broken spirits. You can find one\u2014or more than one\u2014in every play: Rev. Shannon in Night of the Iguana<\/em>, Brick in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof<\/em>, practically the whole cast of Camino Real<\/em>. The Fugitive Kind<\/em> is the title of the award-winning film starring Marlon Brando, Anna Magnani, and Joanne Woodward, which was made from Williams\u2019s play, Orpheus Descending<\/em>. Williams perfected a certain kind of character\u2014drifters,\u00a0 misfits, people out of sync with society, often through no fault of their own. We know such characters in daily life. We believe in his drinkers, his womanizers, his people who hide behind religion or lust after the unattainable, because we know people like that too\u2014the people we call \u201ctheir own worst enemies.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Williams\u2019s older sister Rose was diagnosed with schizophrenia. Treatments in the 1940s for mental disorders were limited, and Rose (like Rosemary Kennedy) was subjected to a lobotomy,  which left her institutionalized. Later in life Williams felt great guilt about Rose\u2019s fate and was a loyal, financially supportive brother. Rose\u2019s shadow is cast across many of Williams\u2019s most memorable characters, including, of course, Laura in The Glass Menagerie<\/em> and even Blanch DuBois in Streetcar<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not only did he create a vast body of work, he expanded the form with experimental (albeit not popular\u2014yet!) plays and covered subjects not openly addressed on stage before: homosexuality, blasphemy, and the like. Monte calls him \u201ca connoisseur of language,\u201d as he sets brutal violence alongside his poetic form.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Marguerite from Camino Real: \u201cOh, Jacques, we\u2019re used to each other, we\u2019re a pair of captive hawks caught in the same cage, and so we\u2019ve grown used to each other.”<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

John in Summer and Smoke: \u201cYou\u2014white-blooded spinster! You so right people, pious pompous mumblers, preachers and preacher\u2019s daughter, all muffled up in a lot of worn out magic!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

His lines are delivered in a very specific visual world. Williams\u2019s stage directions and descriptions of his sets are detailed and precise: \u201c(T)he sky should be a pure and intense blue (like the sky of Italy as it is so faithfully represented in the religious paintings of the Renaissance),\u201d and, in the night sky, which constellations to project. (Examples from Summer and Smoke<\/em>.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Williams fell out of favor in the 1970\u2019s, and Monte says the theater community was downright cruel about him and his work. His later plays were not well received, and many critics and academics thought his reputation was in permanent decline. A dab of homophobia may have contributed and (like Edgar Allan Poe) the machinations of a poorly managed literary estate, a fate shared with Edgar Allan Poe, whose reputation was damaged for decades. But the plays speak for themselves. And, his later plays remain capable of getting audiences to think new thoughts and see the world in new ways.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cThe Fugitive Kind\u201d is the framework Bonnie J. Monte, is using for her \u201cBook Club\u201d discussions of Tennessee Williams (1911-1983) and his work. Monte is the artistic director of the Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey, and the next Book Club … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Tennessee Williams: How To See - brutal violence alongside poetic language in Tennessee Williams's specific, prescribed visual world,","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[269,62,265,366,57,104,147,29],"tags":[1826,553,1825],"class_list":["post-8842","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-actor","category-authors","category-biography","category-drama","category-movies","category-the-morgue","category-theater","category-writing","tag-bonnie-j-monte","tag-shakespeare-theatre-of-new-jersey","tag-tennessee-williams"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-2iC","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8842","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8842"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8842\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8844,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8842\/revisions\/8844"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}