The Glass Menagerie: Maureen Stapleton (summer stock), Geraldine Fitzgerald (Phila. Drama Guild), Julie Harris, Jessica Lange, Judith Ivey, Cherry Jones, Sally Field, Katharine Hepburn, Shirley Booth (TV), Gertrude Lawrence, Joanne Woodward (film), Jessica Tandy (recording).
Streetcar Named Desire: Shirley Knight (McCarter Theater), Jessica Lange/Alec Baldwin (on stage and TV), Natasha Richardson/John Reilly, Blythe Danner/Aidan Quinn, Elizabeth Marvel in Ivo van Hove's wacko production at New York Theater Workshop, Gillian Anderson (NT Live on YouTube), Marin Mazzie (Barrington Stage), Nicole Ari Parker/Blair Underwood, Cate Blanchett/Joel Edgarton, Vivien Leigh/Marlon Brando (film), Ann-Margret/Treat Williams (TV).
Summer and Smoke: excellent college production at Carnegie-Mellon (I think Holly Hunter had a small part), Off-B;way revival with Mary McDonnell (Dances with Wolves) at the Roundabout; film with Geraldine Page.
The Rose Tattoo: Anna Magnani (film), Maureen Stapleton (recording); Mercedes Ruhl; Marisa Tomei.
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof: Kathleen Turner; Ashley Judd/Jason Patric/Ned Beatty/Margo Martindale; Anika Noni Rose/Terrence Howard/James Earl Jones/Phylicia Rashad; Scarlett Johanssen/Benjamin Walker; Sandy Dennis/David Selby (summer stock); a very good production at Villanova University in the 1970s; Elizabeth Taylor/Paul Newman (movie); Natalie Wood/Robert Wagner, Jessica Lange/Tommy Lee Jones (TV).
Orpheus Descending/Fugitive Kind: Anna Magnani/Marlon Brando/Joanne Woodward; Vanessa Redgrave/Kevin Anderson.
Suddenly Last Summer: Elizabeth Ashley; Elizabeth Taylor/Katharine Hepburn/Montgomery Clift (movie); Natasha Richardson, Maggie Smith, Rob Lowe (TV)
Sweet Bird of Youth: Irene Worth/Christopher Walken; Margaret Colin (Williamstown Theater Festival); Paul Newman/Geraldine Page (film); Elizabeth Taylor/Mark Harmon (TV)
Baby Doll: Carroll Baker/Eli Wallach/Karl Malden/Mildred Dunnock.
Night of the Iguana: Philadelphia Drama Guild production with Douglas Seale as Nonno, Louise Troy as Maxine; Cherry Jones/Marsha Mason; Linda Hamilton/Amelia Campbell/Garret Dillahunt (Berkshire Theater Festival); Richard Burton/Ava Gardner/Deborah Kerr/Grayson Hall from Dark Shadows (movie).
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| Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor in Boom! based on The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore |
The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone: Vivien Leigh, Warren Beatty, Lotte Lenya (film).
Dragon Country: (two one-acts on PBS): Talk to Me Like the Rain and Let Me Listen and I Can't Imagine Tomorrow with Lois Smith, Alan Mixon, Kim Stanley, William Redfield.
Small Craft Warnings: Tribeca Playhouse with David Greenspan (this is my favorite Williams play because it is so intimate and tender, not flashy like Streetcar or Cat.)
Eccentricities of a Nightengale: Williams' reworking of Summer and Smoke--Theater in American production with Blythe Danner and Frank Langella.
Tennessee Williams' The Migrants: 1974 TV movie with Cloris Leachman, Ron Howard, SIssy Spacek, Cindy Williams. Tennessee Williams is credited with "Story by..." but Lanford Wilson wrote the teleplay. So it's unclear what Williams' contribution was.
Vieux Carre: Temple University production with Naomi Jacobsen (then a grad student) as Mrs. Wire; off-off Bway revival in the 1980s; Pearl Theater Company production with George Morforgen, Carol Schulz, Pamela Payton-Wright.
A Lovely Sunday for Creve Coure: off-off-B'way production with Kristin Nielsen, Annette O'Toole, Jean Lichty.
Clothes for a Summer Hotel: York Theater company revival; also an Off-Off-Bway revival.
In Masks Outrageous and Austere: Shirley Knight, Alison Fraser, Austin Pendleton.
Ten by Tennessee: Acting Company production of one-acts incl. The Lady of Larkspur Lotion, Portrait of a Madonna, A Perfect Analysis Given by a Parrot, Auto da Fe.
Five by Tenn: Five rarely performed one-acts from Manhattan Theater Club with Kathleen Chalfant, David Rasche incl: Adam and Eve on a Raft, And Tell Sad Tales of the Death of Queens, The Fat Man's Wife.
One Arm: a theatrical adaptation of Williams' short story and screenplay about a one-armed hustler.
The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond: a film employing Williams' screenplay.
All these works follow sad, desperate people as they struggle to survive in a harsh, conformist world. After finishing the Lahr bio, I started rereading some of Williams' short plays which have been collected in several different volumes. The Gnadiges Fraulein, part of a double bill called Slapstick Tragedy, was a quick flop on Broadway in 1966 but has a weird and touching combination of dark humor and pathos as two clown-like harpies rock back and forth on a porch in the Florida Keys and mock a bedraggled former vaudevillian reduced to fighting the birds for her dinner. The only Williams play I know of that has not been published is (This Is) An Entertainment which had a run at San Francisco's American Conservatory Theater (ACT) in 1976 and has never been staged since (I have not found any record of any other production.) I would love to read it and complete my Tennessee Williams library.
Williams was castigated for his later works and given the brush off by critics and audiences. Unlike Arthur Miller and Edward Albee who lived long enough to see their reputations restored, Williams died thinking he was a has-been. I always thought it was a tragedy that he died relatively young (71) and that if not for a stupid accident of swallowing a bottle cap and choking, he would have lived on to write more wonderful works. But Lahr reveals that he reached the end of his rope, was hopelessly addicted to alcohol and drugs, and was on his last legs at the time of his death. It's still a tragedy that he was so unappreciated and his true place in American theater has only been established after his death.
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