Acquisitions (140): Arthur Miller

The Penguin Arthur Miller: Collected Plays (2015)

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Arthur Miller & Marilyn Monroe (1956)


The Penguin Arthur Miller: Collected Plays (2015)
[Bookmark, Devonport - 7/11/25]:

Arthur Miller. The Penguin Arthur Miller: Collected Plays. Foreword by Lynn Nottage. Penguin Classic Deluxe Edition. New York: Penguin Random House LLC, 2015.

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Arthur Miller: Death of a Salesman (1949)

Death of a Tale Teller

But of course the point is supposed to be that Arthur Miller didn't tell tales. Unlike many others, including his friend and close collaborator Elia Kazan, he refused to "name names" in front of the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), despite being required to by the chairman, Francis E. Walter - who'd earlier agreed not to make any such demands of Miller.

As a result:

a judge found Miller guilty of contempt of Congress in May 1957. Miller was sentenced to a fine and a prison sentence, blacklisted from Hollywood, and disallowed a US passport. In August 1958, his conviction was overturned by the court of appeals, which ruled that Miller had been misled ...

- Wikipedia: Arthur Miller: 1950-1963

Interestingly enough, this was some four years after the first production of his play The Crucible (1953), an impassioned account of the seventeenth-century Salem witch-trials, seen - as he admitted at the time - through the distorted lens of McCarthyism. Despite having nailed his colours to the mast in advance, it must still have taken considerable courage on his part to defy the committee, at the height of its quasi-dictatorial power and influence.

After the mysterious death of Marilyn Monroe, his ex-wife, from an apparent drug overdose in 1962, Miller did decide to tell a few tales. He collaborated with - of all people - Elia Kazan on a new play, After the Fall, which is generally seen as "a deeply personal view of Miller's experiences during his marriage to Monroe":

Robert Brustein, in a review in the New Republic, called After the Fall "a three and one half hour breach of taste, a confessional autobiography of embarrassing explicitness ... There is a misogynistic strain in the play which the author does not seem to recognize. ... He has created a shameless piece of tabloid gossip, an act of exhibitionism which makes us all voyeurs ... a wretched piece of dramatic writing."

- Wikipedia: Arthur Miller: 1964-2004

It would probably be fair to say that, throughout his life, Miller had a tendency to oversimplify moral dilemmas into stark personal choices. Perhaps it's the (comparative) absence of such judgmental attitudes which makes his most famous play Death of a Salesman the masterpiece it undoubtedly is.

Arthur Miller: Collected Plays (2015)

The other day I picked up a second-hand copy of The Penguin Arthur Miller, a 1300-odd page collection of all of his major plays, together with a preface by Pulitzer Prize-winning dramatist Lynn Nottage. It was a little pricey, but I decided to call it a late birthday present to myself.

Philip Romano: Lynn Nottage (1964- )

We read Death of a Salesman in English at School. I found very moving at the time. There was also a very spirited production of The Crucible put on while I was there which had an even greater effect on me. I don't know that I've actually seen very many other versions of his plays: The Misfits, yes, and the TV movie of Playing for Time, but I'm really pretty ignorant of the rest of his work.

I'd like to remedy that. It got me to thinking about the other American dramatists whose work has been so influential on so many of us over the years: Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire, for instance - though it's really The Glass Menagerie that spoke to me most directly among his plays.

There are lots of others, of course: Lilllian Hellman, Eugene O'Neill, Thornton Wilder. It's certainly not meant as any disparagement of the contemporary American theatre to suggest that there was something in that early to mid-century crop of American dramatists which spoke directly to the world in a way few playwrights have achieved before or since. They're classics for a reason: but (I would suggest) living classics, who stil have a great deal to say to us today.

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Arthur Miller with Elia Kazan & Tennessee Williams (1967)

The Heroic Age of American Theatre

1. Edward Albee (1928-2016)
2. Lillian Hellman (1905-1984)
3. Arthur Miller (1915-2005)
4. Clifford Odets (1906–1963)
5. Eugene O'Neill (1888-1953)
6. Thornton Wilder (1897-1975)
7. Tennessee Williams (1911-1983)
8. Secondary Literature

Books I own are marked in bold:

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Jack Mitchell: Edward Albee (1965)

Edward Franklin Albee III
(1928-2016)

Edward Albee ... was an American playwright known for works such as The Zoo Story (1958), The Sandbox (1959), Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1962), A Delicate Balance (1966), and Three Tall Women (1994) ... Three of his plays won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and two of his other works won the Tony Award for Best Play.
... His early works reflect a mastery and Americanization of the Theatre of the Absurd that found its peak in works by European playwrights such as Samuel Beckett, Eugène Ionesco, and Jean Genet.
His middle period comprised plays that explored the psychology of maturing, marriage and sexual relationships ... Later in life, Albee continued to experiment in works such as The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia? (2002).

- Wikipedia: Edward Albee

Mike Nichols, dir.: Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf (1966)

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf is one of those once seen, never forgotten plays for me. Or, rather, films of a play. I've never actually seen it on stage.

It's hard to believe that anyone could be better in the two main roles than Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, though, and it's not because of the prurient implication that they were reenacting their own turmoil as art.

I remember an ex-student of mine, who started writing plays after doing our Life Writing course at Massey University, had the good fortune to attend a seminar with Edward Albee sometime in the early 2000s. He was, she confirmed, brilliant in person.

I was trying - rather unsuccessfully - to write a play of my own at the time: a puppet-play, no less. I asked her if she had any advice, as she'd had a few plays of her own produced by then. She told me (as I recall, perhaps inaccurately) that Albee had told them that a play was like a box. You put all the things in it you wanted to say, then you started to take some of them out. The more you took out, the better it would run, until you eventually reached the end of the process.

That sounds like the author of The Goat, or Who is Sylvia? It was good advice, but I fear largely wasted on me. It certainly worked for him, though.

Mitchell Butel, dir.: The Goat, or Who is Sylvia? (2023)

Bibliography

Plays:


1. The Zoo Story (1959)
2. The Death of Bessie Smith (1960)
3. The Sandbox (1960)
4. Fam and Yam (1960)
5. The American Dream (1961)
6. Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1962)
   • Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? 1962. Penguin Plays. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1976.
7. Tiny Alice (1964)
8. A Delicate Balance (1966)
9. Box and Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-Tung (1968)
10. All Over (1971)
11. Seascape (1975)
12. Listening (1976)
13. Counting the Ways (1976)
14. The Lady from Dubuque (1980)
15. The Man Who Had Three Arms (1982)
16. Finding the Sun (1983)
17. Walking (1984)
18. Envy (1985)
19. Marriage Play (1987)
20. Three Tall Women (1991)
21. The Lorca Play (1992)
22. Fragments (1993)
23. The Play About the Baby (1998)
24. The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia? (2000)
25. Occupant (2001)
26. Knock! Knock! Who's There!? (2003)
27. At Home at the Zoo (2004)
28. Me Myself and I (2007)

Stage Adaptations:


29. [after Carson McCullers] The Ballad of the Sad Café (1963)
30. [after James Purdy] Malcolm (1966)
31. [after Truman Capote] Breakfast at Tiffany's (1966)
32. [after Giles Cooper] Everything in the Garden (1967)
33. [after Vladimir Nabokov] Lolita (1981)

Opera libretti:


34. [after Herman Melville] Bartleby (1961)
35. The Ice Age [uncompleted] (1963)

Essays:


36. Stretching My Mind: Essays 1960–2005 (2005)

Collections:


37. The Collected Plays. 3 vols (1981-1994)
    1. 1958-1965 (1981)
       1. The Zoo Story
       2. The Death of Bessie Smith
       3. The Sandbox
       4. The American Dream
       5. Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf
       6. The Ballad of the Sad Café
       7. Tiny Alice
       8. Malcolm
    2. 1966-1977 (1981)
       1. A Delicate Balance
       2. Everything in the Garden
       3. Box and Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-Tung
       4. All Over
       5. Seascape
       6. Listening
       7. Counting the Ways
       8. The Lady from Dubuque
    3. 1978-2003 (2006)
       1. Lolita
       2. The Man Who Had Three Arms
       3. Finding the Sun
       4. Marriage Play
       5. Three Tall Women
       6. Fragments (A Sit-Around)
       7. The Play About the Baby
       8. The Goat, or Who is Sylvia
       9. Occupant
       10. Knock! Knock! Who's There!

Edward Albee: Collected Plays (3 vols: 2004-2006)

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Lillian Hellman (1905-1984)

Lillian Florence Hellman
(1905-1984)

Lillian Hellman ... was an American playwright, prose writer, memoirist, and screenwriter known for her success on Broadway as well as her communist views and political activism. She was blacklisted after her appearance before the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) at the height of the anti-communist campaigns of 1947–1952. Although she continued to work on Broadway in the 1950s, her blacklisting by the U.S. film industry caused a drop in her income. Many praised Hellman for refusing to answer HUAC's questions, but others believed, despite her denial, that she had belonged to the Communist Party.
As a playwright, Hellman had many successes on Broadway, including The Children's Hour, The Little Foxes and its sequel Another Part of the Forest, Watch on the Rhine, The Autumn Garden, and Toys in the Attic. She adapted her semi-autobiographical play The Little Foxes into a screenplay; the movie starred Bette Davis. Hellman was romantically involved with fellow writer and political activist Dashiell Hammett, who also was blacklisted for 10 years.

- Wikipedia: Lillian Hellman

William Wyler, dir.: The Children's Hour (1961)

I've already written a post about Lillian Hellman and her complex relationships with 1/ fellow-writer Dashiell Hammett, & 2/ the truth (as exemplified in her increasingly unreliable late memoirs).

As a playwright, in her prime, she was an unstoppable force in the theatre, though. First "The Children's Hour," with its memorably portrayal of the hypocrisy of bourgeois morality when faced with even the slightest hint of unconventionality. Then, in more autobiographical mode, "The Little Foxes", a play about the ravages brought about by a wealthy family's untrammelled greed. The reviewer of a recent production asks a pertinent question:

The movie The Little Foxes, released in the 1940s, starring ... Bette Davis ... was somewhat re-written for the screen ... Hellman actually wrote the screenplay, and it was well known at the time that she was a socialist, quite outspoken, with communistic tendencies in her private life. So, was she using this play to make some kind of very powerful statement about capitalism versus socialism, as well as greed, and the disruptive and destructive power of money and what it does to people?

Almost certainly yes, though the advantage of the dramatic form Hellman has chosen, the well-made play, is that it enables her to cycle through a series of reactions and attitudes through the views of the various characters on stage. It has as much in it of the soap opera as the morality tale. Perhaps that's why it's still to be seen on stage today.

In many ways the communist beliefs she shared with her partner Hammett have worn better than the globalised capitalism which has succeeded them.

J. Barry Lewis, dir.: The Little Foxes (2025)

[Bibliography]

Lillian Hellman: The Collected Plays (1971)

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Eric Koch: Arthur Miller (1966)

Arthur Asher Miller
(1915-2005)

Arthur Miller ... was an American actor and writer of plays in the 20th-century American theater. Among his most popular plays are All My Sons (1947), Death of a Salesman (1949), The Crucible (1953), and A View from the Bridge (1955). He wrote several screenplays, including The Misfits (1961). The drama Death of a Salesman is considered one of the best American plays of the 20th century.
Miller was often in the public eye, particularly during the late 1940s, 1950s and early 1960s. During this time, he received a Pulitzer Prize for Drama, testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee, and married Marilyn Monroe.

- Wikipedia: Arthur Miller

Volker Schlöndorff, dir.: Death of a Salesman (1985)

It was strange watching "Death of a Salesman" for the first time, on television, almost a decade after studying it in class at school. We'd read the play out in class, painFully and painstakingly, debating every line - especially that speech about how "Willy was a salesman":

And for a salesman, there is no rock bottom to the life. He don’t put a bolt to a nut, he don’t tell you the law or give you medicine. He’s a man way out there in the blue, riding on a smile and a shoeshine. And when they start not smiling back — that’s an earthquake. And then you get yourself a couple of spots on your hat, and you’re finished. Nobody dast blame this man. A salesman is got to dream, boy. It comes with the territory.

Also the distinction between being "liked" and "well liked" - that, I recall, occasioned much debate.

"The Crucible," by contrast, was an entirely theatrical experience. We hadn't read it in class, so I was able to come at it cold, seeing all the familiar figures from the schoolyard transformed into curiously garbed Puritans, busily selling each other down the river.

It's not, dare one say, a terribly subtle play, but one can't deny its power. Which is yet another reason it's such a favourite for school drama programmes, I guess.

I'm hoping that having this new volune of collected plays will enable me to get to grips with some of his other famous plays, the ones I haven't ever managed to see on stage. I Look forward to it. And to finishing, finally, his autobiography, which I've started a couple of times but been unable to persevere with. Too much childhood stuff and character sketches of elderly relatives was my main impression, as far as I'd got, but no doubt there's far more interesting material to come.

Nicholas Hytner, dir.: The Crucible (1996)

Bibliography

Plays:


1. No Villain (1936)
2. They Too Arise [based on "No Villain"] (1937)
3. Honors at Dawn [based on "They Too Arise"] (1938)
4. The Grass Still Grows [based on "They Too Arise"] (1938)
5. The Great Disobedience (1938)
6. [with Norman Rosten] Listen My Children (1939)
7. The Golden Years (1940)
8. The Half-Bridge (1943)
9. The Man Who Had All the Luck (1944)
   • Included in: The Penguin Arthur Miller: Collected Plays. Foreword by Lynn Nottage. Penguin Classic Deluxe Edition. New York: Penguin Random House LLC, 2015.
10. All My Sons (1947)
    • Included in: The Penguin Arthur Miller: Collected Plays. Foreword by Lynn Nottage. Penguin Classic Deluxe Edition. New York: Penguin Random House LLC, 2015.
11. Death of a Salesman (1949)
    • Included in: The Penguin Arthur Miller: Collected Plays. Foreword by Lynn Nottage. Penguin Classic Deluxe Edition. New York: Penguin Random House LLC, 2015.
12. [after Henrik Ibsen] An Enemy of the People (1950)
    • Included in: The Penguin Arthur Miller: Collected Plays. Foreword by Lynn Nottage. Penguin Classic Deluxe Edition. New York: Penguin Random House LLC, 2015.
13. The Crucible (1953)
    • Included in: The Penguin Arthur Miller: Collected Plays. Foreword by Lynn Nottage. Penguin Classic Deluxe Edition. New York: Penguin Random House LLC, 2015.
14. A View from the Bridge (1955)
    • Included in: The Penguin Arthur Miller: Collected Plays. Foreword by Lynn Nottage. Penguin Classic Deluxe Edition. New York: Penguin Random House LLC, 2015.
15. A Memory of Two Mondays (1955)
16. After the Fall (1964)
    • Included in: The Penguin Arthur Miller: Collected Plays. Foreword by Lynn Nottage. Penguin Classic Deluxe Edition. New York: Penguin Random House LLC, 2015.
17. Incident at Vichy (1964)
    • Included in: The Penguin Arthur Miller: Collected Plays. Foreword by Lynn Nottage. Penguin Classic Deluxe Edition. New York: Penguin Random House LLC, 2015.
18. The Price (1968)
    • Included in: The Penguin Arthur Miller: Collected Plays. Foreword by Lynn Nottage. Penguin Classic Deluxe Edition. New York: Penguin Random House LLC, 2015.
19. The Reason Why (1970)
20. Fame [one-act play] (1970)
21. The Creation of the World and Other Business (1972)
    • Included in: The Penguin Arthur Miller: Collected Plays. Foreword by Lynn Nottage. Penguin Classic Deluxe Edition. New York: Penguin Random House LLC, 2015.
22. Up from Paradise (1974)
23. The Archbishop's Ceiling (1977)
    • Included in: The Penguin Arthur Miller: Collected Plays. Foreword by Lynn Nottage. Penguin Classic Deluxe Edition. New York: Penguin Random House LLC, 2015.
24. The American Clock (1980)
    • Included in: The Penguin Arthur Miller: Collected Plays. Foreword by Lynn Nottage. Penguin Classic Deluxe Edition. New York: Penguin Random House LLC, 2015.
25. Playing for Time [television play] (1980)
    • Included in: The Penguin Arthur Miller: Collected Plays. Foreword by Lynn Nottage. Penguin Classic Deluxe Edition. New York: Penguin Random House LLC, 2015.
26. Two Way Mirror (1982)
    1. Elegy for a Lady
    2. Some Kind of Love Story
27. I Think About You a Great Deal (1986)
28. Playing for Time [stage play] (1985)
29. Danger: Memory! (1987)
    1. I Can't Remember Anything
    2. Clara
30. The Ride Down Mt. Morgan (1991)
    • Included in: The Penguin Arthur Miller: Collected Plays. Foreword by Lynn Nottage. Penguin Classic Deluxe Edition. New York: Penguin Random House LLC, 2015.
31. The Last Yankee (1993)
    • Included in: The Penguin Arthur Miller: Collected Plays. Foreword by Lynn Nottage. Penguin Classic Deluxe Edition. New York: Penguin Random House LLC, 2015.
32. Broken Glass (1994)
    • Included in: The Penguin Arthur Miller: Collected Plays. Foreword by Lynn Nottage. Penguin Classic Deluxe Edition. New York: Penguin Random House LLC, 2015.
33. Mr. Peters' Connections (1998)
    • Included in: The Penguin Arthur Miller: Collected Plays. Foreword by Lynn Nottage. Penguin Classic Deluxe Edition. New York: Penguin Random House LLC, 2015.
34. Resurrection Blues (2002)
    • Included in: The Penguin Arthur Miller: Collected Plays. Foreword by Lynn Nottage. Penguin Classic Deluxe Edition. New York: Penguin Random House LLC, 2015.
35. Finishing the Picture (2004)

Radio plays:


36. The Pussycat and the Expert Plumber Who Was a Man (1940)
37. Joel Chandler Harris (1941)
38. Captain Paul (1941)
39. Buffalo Bill Disremembers (1941)
40. The Battle of the Ovens (1942)
41. Thunder from the Mountains (1942)
42. The Battle of the Ovens (1942)
43. Thunder from the Mountains (1942)
44. I Was Married in Bataan (1942)
45. That They May Win (1943)
46. Listen for the Sound of Wings (1943)
47. Bernardine (1944)
48. I Love You (1944)
49. Grandpa and the Statue (1944)
50. The Philippines Never Surrendered (1944)
51. [after Ferenc Molnár] The Guardsman (1944)
52. Glider Doctor (1944)
53. Mare Island and Back (1945)
54. The Story of Gus (1947)

Screenplays:


55. The Hook (1947)
56. All My Sons (1948)
57. Let's Make Love (1960)
58. The Misfits (1961)
    • Included in: The Misfits. 1957 & 1961. Penguin Books 1666. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1961.
59. Death of a Salesman (1985)
60. Everybody Wins (1990)
61. The Crucible (1996)

Fiction:


62. Focus (1945)
    • Focus: A Novel. 1945. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1978.
63. "The Misfits" (Esquire, 1957)
    • Included in: The Misfits. 1957 & 1961. Penguin Books 1666. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1961.
64. I Don't Need You Anymore: Stories (1967)
65. "Homely Girl: A Life" [aka "Plain Girl: A Life"] (1992)
66. Presence: Stories (2007)

Non-fiction:


67. Situation Normal: Ernie Pyle (1944)
68. In Russia. Photographs by Inge Morath (1969)
69. In the Country. Photographs by Inge Morath (1977)
70. Chinese Encounters. Photographs by Inge Morath (1979)
71. Salesman in Beijing (1984)
72. Timebends: A Life (1987)
    • Timebends: A Life. 1987. A Methuen Paperback. London: Methuen London Ltd., 1988.
73. On Politics and the Art of Acting (2001)

Collections:


74. Arthur Miller's Collected Plays. Introduction by Arthur Miller (1957)
    1. All My Sons (1947)
    2. Death of a Salesman (1949)
    3. The Crucible (1953)
    4. A Memory of Two Mondays (1955)
    5. A View from the Bridge
75. The Theater Essays of Arthur Miller. Ed. Robert A. Martin (1978)
76. Collected Plays: 1944–1961. Ed. Tony Kushner. Library of America (2006)
    1. The Man Who Had All the Luck (1944)
    2. All My Sons (1947)
    3. Death of a Salesman (1949)
    4. An Enemy of the People (1950)
77. Collected Plays: 1964–1982. Ed. Tony Kushner. Library of America (2012)
    1. After the Fall (1964)
    2. Incident at Vichy (1964)
    3. The Price (1968)
    4. Fame (1970)
    5. The Reason Why (1970)
    6. The Creation of the World and Other Business (1972)
    7. Up From Paradise (1974)
    8. The American Clock (1974; revised 1984)
    9. The Poosidin’s Resignation (1976)
    10. The Archbishop’s Ceiling (1977; revised 1984)
    11. Playing for Time (1980)
    12. I Think About You a Great Deal (1982)
    13. Elegy for a Lady (1982)
    14. Some Kind of Love Story (1982)
78. Collected Plays: 1987–2004. Ed. Tony Kushner. Library of America (2015)
    1. I Can’t Remember Anything (1987)
    2. Clara (1987)
    3. The Golden Years (1941; revised 1987)
    4. Almost Everybody Wins (1984/1990)
    5. The Ride Down Mt. Morgan (1991)
    6. The Last Yankee (1993)
    7. Broken Glass (1994)
    8. The Ryan Interview, or How It Was Around Here (1995)
    9. Mr. Peters’ Connections (1998)
    10. Resurrection Blues (2002)
    11. Finishing the Picture (2004)
    Early Plays
    12. The Grass Still Grows (1939)
    13. The Half-Bridge (1942)
    Radio Plays
    14. Captain Paul (1941)
    15. Buffalo Bill Disremembers (1941)
    16. The Battle of the Ovens (1942)
    17. Thunder from the Mountains (1942)
    18. Glider Doctor (1944)
    19. Mare Island and Back (1945)
79. The Penguin Arthur Miller: Collected Plays. Foreword by Lynn Nottage (2015)
    1. The Man Who Had All the Luck
    2. All My Sons
    3. Death of a Salesman
    4. An Enemy of the People
    5. The Crucible
    6. A View from the Bridge
    7. After the Fall
    8. Incident at Vichy
    9. The Price
    10. The Creation of the World and Other Business
    11. The Archbishop’s Ceiling
    12. The American Clock
    13. Playing for Time
    14. The Ride Down Mt. Morgan
    15. The Last Yankee
    16. Broken Glass
    17. Mr. Peters’ Connections
    18. Resurrection Blues
    • The Penguin Arthur Miller: Collected Plays. Foreword by Lynn Nottage. Penguin Classic Deluxe Edition. New York: Penguin Random House LLC, 2015.
80. Collected Essays. Ed. Susan C. W. Abbotson (2016)

Arthur Miller: Collected Plays. Ed. Tony Kushner (Library of America, 2006, 2012, 2015)

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Alfredo Valente: Clifford Odets (1938)

Clifford Odets
(1906-1963)

Clifford Odets ... was an American playwright, screenwriter, and actor. In the mid-1930s, he was widely seen as the potential successor to Nobel Prize–winning playwright Eugene O'Neill, as O'Neill began to withdraw from Broadway's commercial pressures and increasing critical backlash. From January 1935, Odets's socially relevant dramas were extremely influential, particularly for the remainder of the Great Depression. His works inspired the next several generations of playwrights, including Arthur Miller, Paddy Chayefsky, Neil Simon, and David Mamet. After the production of his play Clash by Night in the 1941–42 season, Odets focused his energies primarily on film projects, remaining in Hollywood until mid-1948. He returned to New York for five and a half years, during which time he produced three more Broadway plays, only one of which was a success.

- Wikipedia: Clifford Odets

Clifford Odets: Waiting for Lefty (1935)

So what is "Waiting for Lefty" about? Well, that's pretty easy to answer:

The opening scene is a hiring hall where a union leader (obviously in the pay of the bosses) is trying to convince a committee of workers (who are waiting for their leader, Lefty, to arrive) not to strike. This is followed by a moving confrontation between a discouraged taxi driver, who cannot earn enough to live on, and his angry wife, who wants him to show some backbone and stand up to his employer; a revealing scene between a scheming boss and the young worker who refuses to spy on his fellow employees; ... and, finally, a return to the union hall where the workers, learning that Lefty has been gunned down by the powers-that-be, resolve at last to stand up for their rights and to strike – and to stay off their jobs until their grievances are finally heard and acted upon by those who have so cynically exploited and misused them.

Right on, Comrade! Clifford Odets himself is presented as a bit of a cad in the bio-pic Frances (1982), about the unfortunate experiences of actress Frances Farmer both in Hollywood and in the Group Theatre in New York.

His real star-turn is as the inspiration for the main character in the Coen Brothers' 1991 movie Barton Fink. Fink is, admittedly, a cruel parody of the real Odets, who had far more success both as an actor and a director than his imaginary counterpart. The small snippets we're shown of Fink's stage masterpiece "Bare Ruined Choirs", about the downtrodden lives of a family of fishmongers in New York, does show a disconcerting resemblance to such plays as "Waiting for Lefty" and "Golden Boy," unfortunately.

The last line of the play - "we're going to hear from that boy, and I don't mean a postcard" - is repeated in his Wallace Beery wrestling flick script, about a man wrestling with his own soul. Fink's basic character flaw - "You never listen!" - also reveals the limited nature of his knowledge of, let alone sympathy for, the so-called "common man."

None of which can affect the fact that Odets' plays had a huge effect on audiences in the late 1930s, and are still being revived today. Nor can old quarrels over who did and who didn't "name names" to HUAC in the 40s and 50s be allowed to put any permanent stain on his reputation. Which of us would have done better in his place? Look at the spineless acquiescence American institutions are showing to an even more flawed would-be tyrant in the here-and-now ...

Clifford Odets: Golden Boy (1937-2012)

Bibliography

Plays:


1. Waiting for Lefty (1935)
2. Awake and Sing! (1935)
   • Included in: Golden Boy / Awake and Sing! / The Big Knife. 1937, 1935, 1949. Introduction by Eric Mottram. Penguin Plays PL44. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1963.
3. Till the Day I Die (1935)
4. The Crucible (1953)
5. A Memory of Two Mondays (1955)
6. A View from the Bridge (one act version) (1955)
7. A View from the Bridge (two act version) (1955)
8. The Misfits (novella) (1957)
9. Paradise Lost (1935)
10. "I Can't Sleep" [monologue] (1935)
11. Sarah Bernhardt [radio play] (1936)
12. The Silent Partner [unproduced] (1936)
13. Golden Boy (1937)
    • Included in: Golden Boy / Awake and Sing! / The Big Knife. 1937, 1935, 1949. Introduction by Eric Mottram. Penguin Plays PL44. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1963.
14. Rocket to the Moon (1938)
15. Night Music (1940)
16. Clash by Night (1941)
17. The Russian People [adaptation] (1942)
18. The Big Knife (1949)
    • Included in: Golden Boy / Awake and Sing! / The Big Knife. 1937, 1935, 1949. Introduction by Eric Mottram. Penguin Plays PL44. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1963.
19. The Country Girl (1950)
20. The Flowering Peach (1954)

Screenplays:


21. The General Died at Dawn (1936)
22. None but the Lonely Heart (1944)
23. [with Zachary Gold] Humoresque (1946)
24. Notorious [uncredited] (1946)
25. Deadline at Dawn (1946)
26. Sweet Smell of Success (1957)
27. The Story on Page One (1959)
28. Wild in the Country (1961)


Essays:


29. Introduction to Modern Library edition of Nikolai Gogol's Dead Souls (1936)

Clifford Odets: Six Plays (1939)

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Eugene O'Neill (1888–1953)

Eugene Gladstone O'Neill
(1888-1953)

Eugene O'Neill ... was an American playwright. His poetically titled plays were among the first to introduce into the U.S. the drama techniques of realism, earlier associated with Chekhov, Ibsen, and Strindberg. The tragedy Long Day's Journey into Night is often included on lists of the finest American plays in the 20th century, alongside Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire and Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman. He was awarded the 1936 Nobel Prize in Literature. O'Neill is also the only playwright to win four Pulitzer Prizes for Drama.
O'Neill's plays were among the first to include speeches in American English vernacular and involve characters on the fringes of society. They struggle to maintain their hopes and aspirations, ultimately sliding into disillusion and despair. Of his very few comedies, only one is well known (Ah, Wilderness!).Nearly all of his other plays involve some degree of tragedy and personal pessimism.

- Wikipedia: Eugene O'Neill

Eugene O'Neill: Mourning Becomes Electra (1931)

The Nobel Prize, four Pulitzer Prizes for drama: it's hard to avoid the idea that America thought that it had its Shakespeare - or at least its Ibsen - in the person of Eugene O'Neill. He was acclaimed, reviled, forgotten, revived - and at least one of his plays, "Long Day's Journey into Night", has become a much-performed classic.

Is he loved, though? The way that certain plays by Miller and Williams, or even Thornton Wilder, are seen as essential components of world literature?

Jack Nicholson was nominated for an Oscar for his performance as O'Neill in the 1981 film Reds. He did rather steal the show for the few scenes he was on screen.

Apart from that, O'Neill is probably better known now as the father of Charlie Chaplin's wife Oona than he is in his own right.

Perhaps it's the resolute way in which he avoided enacting all the clichés about American culture - "there are no second acts in American lives," and all those other self-serving dicta from the likes of Fitzgerald and Hemingway - and simply got on with the job which has stood in his way. From my point of view, he's well overdue for a revival.

Eugene O'Neill: Long Day's Journey into Night (1956)

Bibliography

Plays:


1. Bread and Butter (1914)
2. Servitude (1914)
   • Included in: The Collected Plays of Eugene O’Neill. Introduction by John Lahr. 1984. London. Jonathan Cape Ltd., 1988.
3. The Personal Equation (1915)
4. Now I Ask You (1916)
5. Beyond the Horizon (1918)
   • Included in: The Collected Plays of Eugene O’Neill. Introduction by John Lahr. 1984. London. Jonathan Cape Ltd., 1988.
6. The Straw (1919)
   • Included in: The Collected Plays of Eugene O’Neill. Introduction by John Lahr. 1984. London. Jonathan Cape Ltd., 1988.
7. Chris Christophersen (1919)
8. Gold (1920)
   • Included in: The Collected Plays of Eugene O’Neill. Introduction by John Lahr. 1984. London. Jonathan Cape Ltd., 1988.
9. Anna Christie (1920)
   • Included in: The Collected Plays of Eugene O’Neill. Introduction by John Lahr. 1984. London. Jonathan Cape Ltd., 1988.
10. The Emperor Jones (1920)
    • Included in: The Collected Plays of Eugene O’Neill. Introduction by John Lahr. 1984. London. Jonathan Cape Ltd., 1988.
11. Diff'rent (1921)
    • Included in: The Collected Plays of Eugene O’Neill. Introduction by John Lahr. 1984. London. Jonathan Cape Ltd., 1988.
12. The First Man (1922)
    • Included in: The Collected Plays of Eugene O’Neill. Introduction by John Lahr. 1984. London. Jonathan Cape Ltd., 1988.
13. The Hairy Ape (1922)
    • Included in: The Collected Plays of Eugene O’Neill. Introduction by John Lahr. 1984. London. Jonathan Cape Ltd., 1988.
14. The Ancient Mariner [after Coleridge's poem] (1923)
15. The Fountain (1923)
    • Included in: The Collected Plays of Eugene O’Neill. Introduction by John Lahr. 1984. London. Jonathan Cape Ltd., 1988.
16. Marco Millions (1923–25)
    • Included in: The Collected Plays of Eugene O’Neill. Introduction by John Lahr. 1984. London. Jonathan Cape Ltd., 1988.
17. All God's Chillun Got Wings (1924)
    • Included in: The Collected Plays of Eugene O’Neill. Introduction by John Lahr. 1984. London. Jonathan Cape Ltd., 1988.
18. Welded (1924)
    • Included in: The Collected Plays of Eugene O’Neill. Introduction by John Lahr. 1984. London. Jonathan Cape Ltd., 1988.
19. Desire Under the Elms (1924)
    • Included in: The Collected Plays of Eugene O’Neill. Introduction by John Lahr. 1984. London. Jonathan Cape Ltd., 1988.
20. Lazarus Laughed (1925–26)
    • Included in: The Collected Plays of Eugene O’Neill. Introduction by John Lahr. 1984. London. Jonathan Cape Ltd., 1988.
21. The Great God Brown (1926)
    • Included in: The Collected Plays of Eugene O’Neill. Introduction by John Lahr. 1984. London. Jonathan Cape Ltd., 1988.
22. Strange Interlude (1928)
    • Included in: The Collected Plays of Eugene O’Neill. Introduction by John Lahr. 1984. London. Jonathan Cape Ltd., 1988.
23. Dynamo (1929)
    • Included in: The Collected Plays of Eugene O’Neill. Introduction by John Lahr. 1984. London. Jonathan Cape Ltd., 1988.
24. Mourning Becomes Electra (1931)
    • Included in: The Collected Plays of Eugene O’Neill. Introduction by John Lahr. 1984. London. Jonathan Cape Ltd., 1988.
25. Ah, Wilderness! (1933)
    • Included in: The Collected Plays of Eugene O’Neill. Introduction by John Lahr. 1984. London. Jonathan Cape Ltd., 1988.
26. Days Without End (1933)
    • Included in: The Collected Plays of Eugene O’Neill. Introduction by John Lahr. 1984. London. Jonathan Cape Ltd., 1988.
27. More Stately Mansions (1937-1938; performed 1967)
    • Included in: The Collected Plays of Eugene O’Neill. Introduction by John Lahr. 1984. London. Jonathan Cape Ltd., 1988.
28. The Iceman Cometh (1939-1940; performed 1946)
    • Included in: The Collected Plays of Eugene O’Neill. Introduction by John Lahr. 1984. London. Jonathan Cape Ltd., 1988.
29. Long Day's Journey into Night (1941; performed 1956)
    • Included in: The Collected Plays of Eugene O’Neill. Introduction by John Lahr. 1984. London. Jonathan Cape Ltd., 1988.
30. A Moon for the Misbegotten (1941–1943; performed 1947)
    • Included in: The Collected Plays of Eugene O’Neill. Introduction by John Lahr. 1984. London. Jonathan Cape Ltd., 1988.
31. A Touch of the Poet (1942; performed 1958)
    • Included in: The Collected Plays of Eugene O’Neill. Introduction by John Lahr. 1984. London. Jonathan Cape Ltd., 1988.
32. The Calms of Capricorn [unfinished] (1983)

One-act plays:


33. A Wife for a Life (1913)
    • Included in: The Collected Plays of Eugene O’Neill. Introduction by John Lahr. 1984. London. Jonathan Cape Ltd., 1988.
34. The Web (1913)
    • Included in: The Collected Plays of Eugene O’Neill. Introduction by John Lahr. 1984. London. Jonathan Cape Ltd., 1988.
35. Thirst (1913)
    • Included in: The Collected Plays of Eugene O’Neill. Introduction by John Lahr. 1984. London. Jonathan Cape Ltd., 1988.
36. Recklessness (1913)
    • Included in: The Collected Plays of Eugene O’Neill. Introduction by John Lahr. 1984. London. Jonathan Cape Ltd., 1988.
37. Warnings (1913)
    • Included in: The Collected Plays of Eugene O’Neill. Introduction by John Lahr. 1984. London. Jonathan Cape Ltd., 1988.
38. Fog (1914)
    • Included in: The Collected Plays of Eugene O’Neill. Introduction by John Lahr. 1984. London. Jonathan Cape Ltd., 1988.
39. Abortion (1914)
    • Included in: The Collected Plays of Eugene O’Neill. Introduction by John Lahr. 1984. London. Jonathan Cape Ltd., 1988.
40. The Movie Man: A Comedy (1914)
    • Included in: The Collected Plays of Eugene O’Neill. Introduction by John Lahr. 1984. London. Jonathan Cape Ltd., 1988.
41. The Sniper (1915)
    • Included in: The Collected Plays of Eugene O’Neill. Introduction by John Lahr. 1984. London. Jonathan Cape Ltd., 1988.
42. Before Breakfast (1916)
    • Included in: The Collected Plays of Eugene O’Neill. Introduction by John Lahr. 1984. London. Jonathan Cape Ltd., 1988.
43. The Long Voyage Home
    1. Bound East for Cardiff (1916)
    2. In the Zone (1917)
    3. The Long Voyage Home (1917)
    4. Moon of the Caribbees (1918)
       • Included in: The Collected Plays of Eugene O’Neill. Introduction by John Lahr. 1984. London. Jonathan Cape Ltd., 1988.
44. Ile (1917)
    • Included in: The Collected Plays of Eugene O’Neill. Introduction by John Lahr. 1984. London. Jonathan Cape Ltd., 1988.
45. The Rope (1918)
    • Included in: The Collected Plays of Eugene O’Neill. Introduction by John Lahr. 1984. London. Jonathan Cape Ltd., 1988.
46. Shell Shock (1918)
47. The Dreamy Kid (1918)
    • Included in: The Collected Plays of Eugene O’Neill. Introduction by John Lahr. 1984. London. Jonathan Cape Ltd., 1988.
48. Where the Cross Is Made (1918)
    • Included in: The Collected Plays of Eugene O’Neill. Introduction by John Lahr. 1984. London. Jonathan Cape Ltd., 1988.
49. Exorcism (1919)
50. Hughie (1941; performed 1959)
    • Included in: The Collected Plays of Eugene O’Neill. Introduction by John Lahr. 1984. London. Jonathan Cape Ltd., 1988.

Short Stories:


51. Tomorrow (1917)
52. S.O.S. (1918)
53. The Last Will and Testament of an Extremely Distinguished Dog (1940)

Poetry:


54. Poems: 1912-1944 (1980)

Miscellaneous:


55. Eugene O'Neill at Work: Newly Released Ideas for Plays (1981)
56. The Unknown O'Neill: Unpublished Or Unfamiliar Writings of Eugene O'Neill (1988)
57. The Unfinished Plays: Notes for The Visit of Malatesta, The Last Conquest and Blind Alley Guy (1988)

Secondary:


58. Sheaffer, Louis. O’Neill: Son and Playwright. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1968.
59. Sheaffer, Louis. O’Neill: Son and Artist. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1973.

Collections:


60. The Collected Plays of Eugene O'Neill. Introduction by John Lahr (1988)
    1. A Wife for a Life
    2. Thirst
    3. The Web
    4. Warnings
    5. Fog
    6. Recklessness
    7. Bound East for Cardiff
    8. Servitude
    9. Abortion
    10. The Movie Man
    11. The Sniper
    12. Before Breakfast
    13. Ile
    14. In the Zone
    15. The Long Voyage Home
    16. The Moon of the Caribbees
    17. The Rope
    18. The Dreamy Kid
    19. Beyond the Horizon
    20. Where the Cross Is Made
    21. The Straw
    22. Gold
    23. Anna Christie
    24. The Emperor Jones
    25. Diff’rent
    26. The First Man
    27. The Hairy Ape
    28. The Fountain
    29. Welded
    30. All God’s Chillun Got Wings
    31. Desire Under the Elms
    32. Marco Millions
    33. The Great God Brown
    34. Lazarus Laughed
    35. Strange Interlude
    36. Dynamo
    37. Mourning Becomes Electra
    38. Ah, Wilderness!
    39. Days Without End
    40. A Touch of the Poet
    41. More Stately Mansions
    42. The Iceman Cometh
    43. Long Day’s Journey into Night
    44. Hughie
    45. A Moon for the Misbegotten
    • The Collected Plays of Eugene O’Neill. Introduction by John Lahr. 1984. London. Jonathan Cape Ltd., 1988.
61. The Complete Plays. 3 vols, Ed. Travis Bogard (Library of America, 1988)
    1. Complete Plays 1913–1920
       1. A Wife for a Life
       2. The Web
       3. Thirst
       4. Recklessness
       5. Warnings
       6. Fog
       7. Bread and Butter
       8. Bound East for Cardiff
       9. Abortion
       10. The Movie Man
       11. Servitude
       12. The Sniper
       13. The Personal Equation
       14. Before Breakfast
       15. Now I Ask You
       16. In the Zone
       17. Ile
       18. The Long Voyage Home
       19. The Moon of the Caribbees
       20. The Rope
       21. Beyond the Horizon
       22. Shell Shock
       23. The Dreamy Kid
       24. Where the Cross Is Made
       25. The Straw
       26. Chris Christophersen
       27. Gold
       28. “Anna Christie”
       29. The Emperor Jones
    2. Complete Plays 1920–1931
       1. Diff’rent
       2. The First Man
       3. The Hairy Ape
       4. The Fountain
       5. Welded
       6. All God’s Chillun Got Wings
       7. Desire Under the Elms
       8. Marco Millions
       9. The Great God Brown
       10. Lazarus Laughed
       11. Strange Interlude
       12. Dynamo
       13. Mourning Becomes Electra
    3. Complete Plays 1932–1943
       1. Ah, Wilderness!
       2. Days Without End
       3. A Touch of the Poet
       4. More Stately Mansions
       5. The Iceman Cometh
       6. Hughie
       7. Long Day’s Journey into Night
       8. A Moon for the Misbegotten
       9. “Tomorrow”

Eugene O'Neill: Complete Plays (3 vols: 1988)

•

Bridgeport Telegram: Thornton Wilder (1948)

Thornton Niven Wilder
(1897-1975)

Thornton Wilder ... was an American playwright and novelist. He won three Pulitzer Prizes, for the novel The Bridge of San Luis Rey and for the plays Our Town and The Skin of Our Teeth, and a U.S. National Book Award for the novel The Eighth Day. .
... Wilder began writing plays while at the Thacher School in California, where he did not fit in and was teased by classmates as overly intellectual. According to a classmate, "We left him alone, just left him alone. And he would retire at the library, his hideaway, learning to distance himself from humiliation and indifference."
... Wilder wrote Our Town, a popular play (and later film) set in fictional Grover's Corners, New Hampshire ... Our Town employs a choric narrator called the Stage Manager and a minimalist set to underscore the human experience ...
His play The Skin of Our Teeth opened in New York on November 18, 1942, featuring Fredric March and Tallulah Bankhead. Again, the themes are familiar – the timeless human condition; history as progressive, cyclical, or entropic; literature, philosophy, and religion as the touchstones of civilization ... It was claimed by Joseph Campbell and Henry Morton Robinson, authors of A Skeleton Key to Finnegans Wake, that much of the play was the result of unacknowledged borrowing from Joyce.

- Wikipedia: Thornton Wilder

Lileana Blain-Cruz, dir.: The Skin of Our Teeth (2022)

I first read Thornton Wilder's The Bridge of San Luis Rey in a rather delightful anthology called Twelve Modern Short Novels, illustrated by the Hungarian artist Val Biro. It was accompanied by a number of other stellar stories which had the effect of introducing me to such hitherto unfamiliar authors as Mary Lavin and Katharine Anne Porter.

I loved the story at the time. When I came back to it years later, it seemed a bit over-sentimental and over-written, but perhaps that was just because it had grown in my imagination into something it was not: a Conradian evocation of an imaginary Peru.

I imagine that something similar may happen to at least some of the legions of students who've taken part in school productions of Thornton Wilder's classic Our Town. It's a clever play - but is it quite as clever as it seems when one has so few other first-rate dramas to compare it to?

For all his successes and accolades, it's hard to see Thornton Wilder in the same light now as during his lifetime. His works are not really, I fear, quite so good as they seemed at the time. Does that matter? His work remains enjoyable and intelligent, and you can't really blame him for not being in the absolute first rank of dramatists or fiction writers.

The fact that he looked, at least for a moment, as though he belonged there is really a considerable feat. And, taken for what they are, his books and plays are still well worth seeking out for those who've never read them or seen them performed. You can't blame a writer for not being James Joyce or Tennessee Williams. It's nice to have his work to savour as well as theirs.

Jed Harris, dir.: Our Town (1938)

Bibliography

Plays:


1. The Trumpet Shall Sound (1926)
2. The Angel That Troubled the Waters and Other Plays (1928)
3. The Long Christmas Dinner and Other Plays in One Act (1931)
   1. The Long Christmas Dinner
   2. Queens of France
   3. Pullman Car Hiawatha
   4. Love and How to Cure It
   5. Such Things Only Happen in Books
   6. The Happy Journey to Trenton and Camden
   • The Long Christmas Dinner and Other Plays in One Act. 1931. Penguin Plays. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1969.
4. Our Town (1938)
   • Included in: Three Plays: Our Town / The Skin of Our Teeth / The Matchmaker. 1938, 1942, 1939. Preface by the Author. 1957. Illustrated by Alex Tsao. A Bantam Classic. New York: Bantam Books, Inc., 1961.
5. The Merchant of Yonkers (1938)
6. The Skin of Our Teeth (1942)
   • Included in: Three Plays: Our Town / The Skin of Our Teeth / The Matchmaker. 1938, 1942, 1939. Preface by the Author. 1957. Illustrated by Alex Tsao. A Bantam Classic. New York: Bantam Books, Inc., 1961.
7. The Matchmaker [after "The Merchant of Yonkers"] (1954)
   • Included in: Three Plays: Our Town / The Skin of Our Teeth / The Matchmaker. 1938, 1942, 1939. Preface by the Author. 1957. Illustrated by Alex Tsao. A Bantam Classic. New York: Bantam Books, Inc., 1961.
8. The Alcestiad: Or, A Life in the Sun (1955)
9. Childhood (1960)
10. Infancy (1960)
11. Plays for Bleecker Street (1962)
12. The Collected Short Plays of Thornton Wilder, I (1997)
13. The Emporium (2024)

Novels:


14. The Cabala (1926)
    • The Cabala. 1926. London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1928.
15. The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1927)
    • The Bridge of San Luis Rey. 1927. Illustrated by Clare Leighton. London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1929.
    • The Bridge of San Luis Rey. 1927. London: Longmans, Green and Co. Ltd., 1947.
16. The Woman of Andros (1930)
    • The Woman of Andros. 1930. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1969.
17. Heaven's My Destination (1935)
18. Ides of March (1948)
    • The Ides of March. 1948. Penguin Modern Classics. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1961.
19. The Eighth Day (1967)
20. Theophilus North (1973)

Collections:


21. Collected Plays and Writings on Theater. Ed. J. D. McClatchy. Library of America, 172 (2007)
22. The Bridge of San Luis Rey and Other Novels 1926–1948. Ed. J. D. McClatchy. Library of America, 194 (2009)
23. The Eighth Day, Theophilus North, Autobiographical Writings. Ed. J. D. McClatchy. Library of America, 222 (2011)

Screenplays:


24. [with Sally Benson & Alma Reville] Shadow of a Doubt (1943)

Thonrton Wilder: Collected Plays and Writings on Theater (2007)

•

Imdb: Tennessee Williams (1911-1983)

Thomas Lanier ['Tennessee'] Williams III
(1911-1983)

Tennessee Williams ... was an American playwright and screenwriter. Along with contemporaries Eugene O'Neill and Arthur Miller, he is considered among the three foremost playwrights of 20th-century American drama.
At age 33, after years of obscurity, Williams suddenly became famous with the success of The Glass Menagerie (1944) in New York City. 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, Williams attempted a new style that did not appeal as widely to audiences ...
Much of Williams's most acclaimed work has been adapted for the cinema. He also wrote short stories, poetry, essays, and a volume of memoirs.

- Wikipedia: Tennessee Williams

Paul Newman, dir.: Karen Allen & John Malkovich in The Glass Menagerie (1987)

The first time I saw "The Glass Menagerie" was in a production at Secondary School. I remember that it seemed so "experimental" to me, with the strange lighting, and the narrator overlapping with and coordinating the action, that it didn't really surprise me when some people walked in the back door, and said "Oh, we've come in the wrong way," and backed out again.

It felt like some absurdist, anti-realist trope from Ionesco or Pirandello, rather than a brutal interruption to this most tenuously atmospheric of plays.

As the play proceeded, I began to fidget in my seat. They must have rewritten the script, I thought. So much of it lined up with events in my own family. There was the delicate, reclusive sister; the brash school dux and hero, who'd starred as the Pirate King in Gilbert & Sullivan's Pirates of Penzance.

They've taken the original references and changed them to fit, I thought. I knew that the teacher who'd directed the play had done precisely that with the Gilbert & Sullivan productions I myself had taken part in. He'd added contemporary political references, and extra bits of dialogue, in an effort to drag them out of the nineteenth century. Was it possible he'd done the same with Tennessee Williams' play?

It wasn't till a few days later, when I was able to find a copy of the script, that I could confirm that this was not the case, that those seemingly-so-close-to-home references were in the original text, and it was just a cruel coincidence that so many of them matched so closely. Nor were there any Pirandello-esque deconstructions of the fourth wall in William's most autobiographical play.

I can't say I liked it, exactly - it struck too close for that. It was moving and affecting in a painful way: as if he was reading my mind and displaying the painful contents for all to see.

Later I saw the film versions of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and A Streetcar Named Desire. The first did little for me. I could see the power of the performances, and the dialogue was pithy and memorable, but the settings and situations were too far away for me to understand, let alone really empathise with.

Vivien Leigh in A Streetcar Named Desire, though! My God! The play hit me like a ton of bricks! I can see why it electrified playgoers when it first appeared on stage - but even as a movie it was a punch in the guts. Karl Malden was very bit as powerful in his part as Brando, I thought, and the net effect of the whole thing on someone was young as me was to revise my whole sense of the nature of human desire.

I'm sure there are a lot of high - and probably low - points in the rest of Tennessee Williams' oeuvre. He wrote to the very end, it seems. At his best he was a poet, though, one of the greatest America has ever produced. I can't really overstate the importance of his work to me: those two plays, at any rate.

No doubt he was many things to many people. To me, though, like all those great artists one encounters at exactly the right time, he was purely a benefactor.

Elia Kazan, dir.: Vivien Leigh in A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)

Bibliography

Plays:


1. Candles to the Sun (1936)
2. Fugitive Kind (1937)
3. Spring Storm (1937)
4. Me Vashya (1937)
5. Not About Nightingales (1938)
6. Battle of Angels (1940)
7. I Rise in Flame, Cried the Phoenix (1941)
8. The Glass Menagerie (1944)
   • Included in: A Streetcar Named Desire and The Glass Menagerie. 1947 & 1945. Ed. E. Martin Browne. Penguin Plays PL 23. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1959.
9. You Touched Me! (1945)
10. Stairs to the Roof (1947)
11. A Streetcar Named Desire (1947)
    • Included in: A Streetcar Named Desire and The Glass Menagerie. 1947 & 1945. Ed. E. Martin Browne. Penguin Plays PL 23. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1959.
12. Summer and Smoke (1948)
13. The Rose Tattoo (1951)
    • Included in: The Rose Tattoo / Camino Real. 1948 & 1950. Ed. E. Martin Browne. 1958. Penguin Plays PL21. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1968.
14. Camino Real (1953)
    • Included in: The Rose Tattoo / Camino Real. 1948 & 1950. Ed. E. Martin Browne. 1958. Penguin Plays PL21. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1968.
15. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955)
    • Cat on a Hot Tim Roof. 1955. Penguin Plays. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1957.
16. Orpheus Descending (1957)
    • Included in: The Night of the Iguana / Orpheus Descending. 1963 & 1955. Penguin Plays PL 81. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1968.
17. Suddenly Last Summer (1958)
18. Sweet Bird of Youth (1959)
19. Period of Adjustment (1960)
20. The Night of the Iguana (1961)
    • Included in: The Night of the Iguana / Orpheus Descending. 1963 & 1955. Penguin Plays PL 81. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1968.
21. The Eccentricities of a Nightingale [after "Summer and Smoke"] (1962)
22. The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore (1963)
23. The Mutilated (1965)
24. The Seven Descents of Myrtle [aka "Kingdom of Earth"] (1968)
25. In the Bar of a Tokyo Hotel (1969)
26. Will Mr. Merriweather Return from Memphis? (1969)
27. Small Craft Warnings (1972)
28. The Two-Character Play (1973)
29. Out Cry [after "The Two-Character Play"] (1973)
30. The Red Devil Battery Sign (1975)
31. This Is (An Entertainment) (1976)
32. Vieux Carré (1977)
33. Tiger Tail (1978)
34. A Lovely Sunday for Creve Coeur (1979)
35. Clothes for a Summer Hotel (1980)
36. The Notebook of Trigorin (1980)
37. Something Cloudy, Something Clear (1981)
38. A House Not Meant to Stand (1982)
39. In Masks Outrageous and Austere (1983)

Screenplays:


40. The Glass Menagerie (1950)
41. A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)
42. The Rose Tattoo (1955)
43. Baby Doll (1956)
    • Baby Doll: The Script for the Film. 1956. Harmondsworth: Penguin / Secker and Warburg, 1957.
44. The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond (1957, prod. 2009)
45. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958)
46. Suddenly, Last Summer (1959)
47. The Fugitive Kind (1960)
48. Ten Blocks on the Camino Real (1966)
49. Boom! (1968)
50. Stopped Rocking and Other Screenplays (1984)

One-act plays:


51. 27 Wagons Full of Cotton and Other Plays (1946, rev. ed. 1953)
52. American Blues (1948)
53. Dragon Country: A Book of one-act plays (1970)
54. Mister Paradise and Other One-Act Plays (2005)
55. The Traveling Companion and Other Plays (2008)
56. The Magic Tower and Other One-Act Plays (2011)
57. Now the Cats with Jeweled Claws and Other One-Act Plays (2016)

Novels:


58. The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone (1950)
    • The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone. 1950. Ace Books. London: The Harborough Publishing Co. Ltd., 1960.
59. Moise and the World of Reason (1975)

Short stories:


60. One Arm and Other Stories (1948)
61. Hard Candy: A Book of Stories (1954)
62. The Knightly Quest: a Novella and Four Short Stories (1966)
63. Eight Mortal Ladies Possessed: a Book of Stories (1974)
64. It Happened the Day the Sun Rose (1981)
65. Collected Stories (1985)

Poetry:


66. In the Winter of Cities (1956)
67. Androgyne, Mon Amour (1977)
68. The Collected Poems of Tennessee Williams (2002)

Non-fiction:


69. Memoirs (1975)
    • Memoirs. 1975. New York: Bantam Books, Inc., 1976.
70. New Selected Essays: Where I Live (2009)

Collections:


71. The Theatre of Tennessee Williams. 8 vols (1971-1994)
    1. Vol. I (1971)
       1. Battle of Angels
       2. The Glass Menagerie
       3. A Streetcar Named Desire
    2. Vol. II (1971)
       1. Eccentricities of a Nightingale
       2. Summer and Smoke
       3. The Rose Tattoo
       4. Camino Real
    3. Vol. III (1971)
       1. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
       2. Orpheus Descending
       3. Suddenly Last Summer
    4. Vol. IV (1972)
       1. Sweet Bird of Youth
       2. Period of Adjustment
       3. The Night of the Iguana
    5. Vol. V (1976)
       1. The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore
       2. Kingdom of Earth
       3. Small Craft Warnings
       4. The Two-Character Play
    6. Vol. VI (1981)
       1. 27 Wagons Full of Cotton and Other Short Plays
    7. Vol. VII (1994)
       1. In the Bar of a Tokyo Hotel and Other Plays
    8. Vol. VIII (1992)
       1. Vieux Carré
       2. A Lovely Summer for Creve Coeur
       3. Clothes for a Summer Hotel
       4. The Red Devil Battery Sign
72. The Collected Plays. 2 vols, Ed. Mel Gussow & Kenneth Holditch (Library of America, 2000)
    1. Plays 1937–1955
       1. Spring Storm
       2. Not About Nightingales
       3. Battle of Angels
       4. I Rise in Flame, Cried the Phoenix
       5. from 27 Wagons Full of Cotton (1946)
          1. 27 Wagons Full of Cotton
          2. The Lady of Larkspur Lotion
          3. The Last of My Solid Gold Watches
          4. Portrait of a Madonna
          5. Auto-da-Fé
          6. Lord Byron's Love Letter
          7. This Property Is Condemned
       6. The Glass Menagerie
       7. A Streetcar Named Desire
       8. Summer and Smoke
       9. The Rose Tattoo
       10. Camino Real
       11. from 27 Wagons Full of Cotton (1953)
           1. "Something Wild"
           2. Talk to Me Like the Rain and Let Me Listen
           3. Something Unspoken
       12. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
    2. Plays 1957–1980
       1. Orpheus Descending
       2. Suddenly, Last Summer
       3. Sweet Bird of Youth
       4. Period of Adjustment
       5. The Night of the Iguana
       6. The Eccentricities of a Nightingale
       7. The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore
       8. The Mutilated
       9. Kingdom of Earth (The Seven Descents of Myrtle)
       10. Small Craft Warnings
       11. Out Cry
       12. Vieux Carré
       13. A Lovely Sunday for Creve Coeur
       14. "Crazy Night"

Tennessee Williams: Collected Plays (2 vols: 2011)

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Twentieth Century American Playwrights
l-to-r: Thornton Wilder, Arthur Miller, Edward Albee, Sam Shepard
Eugene O'Neill, Tennessee Williams, David Mamet, August Wilson

Secondary Literature

1. Cherkasov, N. Notes of a Soviet Actor. 1953. Trans. G. Ivanov-Mumjiev & S. Rosenberg. Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, n.d.
2. Esslin, Martin. The Theatre of the Absurd. 1961. Rev. ed. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1968.
3. Hanff, Helene. The Helene Hanff Omnibus: Underfoot in Show Business; 84, Charing Cross Road; The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street; Apple of My Eye; Q's Legacy. 1978, 1971, 1974, 1977, 1985. A Warner Book. London: Little, Brown and Company (UK) Ltd., 1993.
4. Mamet, David. Wilson: A Consideration of the Sources. Containing the Original Notes, Errata, Commentary, and the Preface to the Second Edition. London: Faber, 2000.
5. Stanislavsky, Constantin. My Life in Art. 1924. Trans. J. J. Robbins. 1948. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1967.
6. Stanislavsky, Constantin. An Actor Prepares. Trans. Elizabeth Reynolds Hapgood. New York: Theatre Arts, Inc., 1936.
7. Stanislavsky, Konstantin. Stanislavsky on the Art of the Stage. Trans. David Magarshack. 1950. Faber Paper Covered Editions. London: Faber, 1967.
8. Stanislavsky, Constantin. Creating a Role. Trans. Elizabeth Reynolds Hapgood. 1961. NEL Mentor. London: The New English Library Limited, 1968.

David Palmer, ed.: Visions of Tragedy in Modern American Drama (2018)

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• category - American Poetry & Drama: Drama

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