New Selected Essays: Where I Live

by Tennessee Williams, John S. Bak (Editor), John Lahr (Foreword by)

Overview

"There isn't a dull or conventional page, or an unlovely sentence in the book."—Scott Eyman, The Palm Beach Post

For most of his Broadway plays Tennessee Williams composed an essay, most often for The New York Times, to be published just prior to opening—something to whet the theatergoers’ appetites and to get the critics thinking. Many of these were collected in the 1978 volume Where I Live, which is now expanded by noted Williams scholar John S. Bak to include all of Williams’ theater essays, biographical pieces, introductions and reviews. This volume also includes a few occasional pieces, program notes, and a discreet selection of juvenilia such as his 1927 essay published in Smart Set, which answers the question “Can a good wife be a good sport?”

Wonderful and candid stories abound in these essays—from erudite observations on the theater to veneration for great actresses. In “Five Fiery Ladies” Williams describes his fascinated, deep appreciation of Vivien Leigh, Geraldine Page, Anna Magnani, Katharine Hepburn, and Elizabeth Taylor, all of whom created roles in stage or film versions of his plays. There are two tributes to his great friend Carson McCullers; reviews of Cocteau’s film Orpheus and of two novels by Paul Bowles; a portrait of Williams’ longtime agent Audrey Wood; a salute to Tallulah Bankhead; a political statement from 1972, “We Are Dissenters Now”; some hilarious stories in response to Elia Kazan’s frequent admonition, “Tennessee, Never Talk to An Actress”; and Williams’ most moving and astute autobiographical essay, “The Man in the Overstuffed Chair.”

Theater critic and essayist John Lahr has provided a terrific foreword which sheds further light on Tennessee Williams’ writing process, always fueled by Williams’ self-deprecating humor and his empathy for life’s nonconformists.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780811217286
Publisher:	New Directions Publishing Corporation
Publication date:	04/21/2009
Edition description:	Revised
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

 Tennessee Williams (1911–1983) was America’s most influential playwright. Readers have devoured his poetry, essays, short stories, and letters, as well as his fantastic late plays, his remarkable corpus of one-acts, and his greatest plays—The Glass Menagerie, A Streetcar Named Desire, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, The Night of the Iguana, The Rose Tattoo, Suddenly Last Summer, and Camino Real. Williams is a cornerstone of New Directions—we publish everything he wrote. He is also our single bestselling author.

National Book Award finalist John Lahr is the author of Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh, among other books. He was the senior drama critic of The New Yorker for over two decades. He has twice won the George Jean Nathan Award for Dramatic Criticism and is the first critic ever to win a Tony Award (coauthor, Elaine Stritch at Liberty).

Table of Contents

Introduction John Lahr xi

Essays

"Amor Perdido" or How It Feels to Become a Professional Playwright 3

Te Morituri Salutamus or An Author's Address to a First Night Audience 8

Preface to My Poems 11

The History of a Play (With Parentheses) 15

Notes to the Reader 25

The Author Tells Why it is Called The Glass Menagerie 27

A Playwright's Statement on Dallas's Theatre' 45 Plans 29

The Catastrophe of Success 32

Chicago Arrival 37

Questions Without Answers 40

"Something Wild . . ." 43

Carson McCullers's Reflections in a Golden Eye 48

A Writer's Quest for a Parnassus 54

The Timeless World of a Play 59

The Meaning of The Rose Tattoo 63

Facts About Me 65

Foreword to Camino Real 68

Afterword to Camino Real 71

Person-To-Person 73

Critic Says "Evasion," Writer Says "Mystery" 76

The Past, the Present, and the Perhaps 79

The World I Live In 83

Author and Director: A Delicate Situation 86

If The Writing Is Honest 90

Foreword to Sweet Bird of Youth 93

The Man In the Overstuffed Chair 97

Reflections on a Revival of a Controversial Fantasy 107

Tennessee Williams Presents His POV 109

Prelude to a Comedy 114

Five Fiery Ladies 117

Carson McCullers 121

A Summary of Discovery 123

The Agent as Catalyst 130

T. Williams's View of T. Bankhead 134

Grand 139

Slapstick Tragedy: A Preface 147

The Wolf and I 149

Happiness Is Relevant 153

"Tennessee, Never Talk to an Actress" 156

We Are Dissenters Now 160

Too Personal? 165

Homage to Key West 168

Let me Hang It All Out 171

Where My Head is Now and Other Questions 175

The Blessings and Mixed Blessings of Workshop Productions 177

I Have Rewritten a Play For Artistic Purity181

I Am Widely Regarded as the Ghost Of a Writer 184

The Misunderstandings and Fears of an Artist's Revolt 187

Miscellany: Reviews, Introductions, Appreciations, & Program Notes

A Reply to Mr. Nathan 193

An Appreciation: The Creator of The Glass Menagerie Pays Tribute to Laurette Taylor 195

An Appreciation of Hans Hofmann 197

An Allegory of Man and His Sahara, a Review 198

A Movie by Cocteau . . . , a review 200

The Human Psyche-Alone, a review 202

Notes on the Filming of The Rose Tattoo 204

A Tribute from Tennessee Williams to "Heroic Tallulah Bankhead" 207

On Meeting a Young Writer 208

Concerning Eugene O'Neill 210

Tennessee Williams Talks about His Play In The Bar of a Tokyo Hotel 211

Notes for The Two Character Play 211

To William Inge: An Homage 213

W. H. Auden: A Few Reminiscences 216

Foreword to Jane Bowles's Feminine Wiles 217

Program Note for The Red Devil Battery Sign 218

Foreword to Dakin Williams's the Bar Bizarre 219

Homage to J. 219

Juvenilia and College Papers

Can a Good Wife Be a Good Sport? 223

High School Travel Articles 223

A Day at the Olympics 224

The Tomb of the Capuchins 225

A Flight over London 226

A Night in Venice 227

A Trip to Monte Carlo 229

The Ruins of Pompeii 230

A Tour of the Battle-fields of France 231

A Festival Night in Paris 232

The Almalfi Drive and Sorrento 234

The First Day Out College Papers 235

Candida 236

Review of Two Plays by John M. Synge 238

Some Representative Plays of O'Neill And a Discussion of his Art 240

Is Fives 243

Birth of an Art (Anton Chekhov and the New Theatre) 246

Comments on the Nature of Artists with a few Specific References to the Case of Edgar Allan Poe 254

Afterword John S. Bak 259

Acknowledgments 269

Abbreviations 270

Notes 271

A Complete List of Tennessee Williams's Non-fiction Prose Writings 293

Index 303

Editorial Reviews

"It should be read not as a series of disparate essays but from cover to cover."

The Harvard Book Review - Caroline Bleeke

"This collection of essays adds immeasurably to our understanding of Williams' devoted heart, his brave struggle."

The Times-Picayune - Susan Larson

"A wonderful collection that should not be missed by those with even a glimmer of interest in the theater."

Cedar Rapids Gazette - Rob Cline

"Somehow, it's like seeing the Wizard of Oz looking out of the curtain and seeing himself in a mirror."

The Lincoln County News - Marilis Hornidge