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Tennessee Williams and Jo Mielziner: The Memory Plays
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 October 2010
Extract
The conventional reliance upon “memory,” the lyric subtleties of both writing and scenery, and the ubiquitous mood of emotional despair characterize three early Tennessee Williams plays — The Glass Menagerie, A Streetcar Named Desire, and Summer and Smoke — and set them a part from the less “poetic” currents in the Williams canon. The plays are remarkably similar in organic configuration; their shape and texture reveal a theatrical form of considerable distinction. Although they gained articulate theatrical expression under three different directors, the scenery for all three was designed (in the “Broadway” productions) by Jo Mielziner, whose ideas have continued to influence subsequent productions. The unique fusion of the Williams-Mielziner artistry has given the American drama a consummate theatre aesthetic: a vision of dramatic life most subtle in its use of human values and most articulate in its visual definition of mood.
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- Research Article
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- Copyright © American Society for Theatre Research 1982
References
NOTES
1 Williams, Tennessee, The Glass Menagerie (New York: New Directions, 1949), p. 3.Google Scholar Unless otherwise indicated, all subsequent references to dialogue or stage directions are to the ‘New Directions editions of Williams' plays.
2 Interview with Jo Mielziner, November, 1970.
3 Johnston, Alva, “Aider and Abettor,” The New Yorker, October 30, 1948, p. 38.Google Scholar
4 Lewis, Allan, The Contemporary Theatre (New York: Crown Publishers, 1962), p. 290.Google Scholar
5 Williams, , The Glass Menagerie, x.Google Scholar
6 Williams, , A Streetcar Named Desire (New York: New Directions, 1947), p. 9.Google Scholar
7 Brown, John Mason, review of “A Streetcar Named Desire,” Saturday Review, December 27, 1947, p. 22.Google Scholar
8 Krutch, Joseph Wood, review of “A Streetcar Named Desire,” Nation, December 20, 1947, p. 686.Google Scholar
9 Jo Mielziner quoted in Goodman, Randolph, Drama on Stage (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1961), p. 313.Google Scholar
10 Ibid.
11 Williams, , Summer and Smoke (New York: New Directions, 1948), p. 9.Google Scholar
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13 Atkinson, Brooks, review of “Summer and Smoke,” The New York Times, October 7, 1948, p. 33.Google Scholar
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15 Mielziner, , Designing for the Theatre (New York: Athaneum, 1965), p. 124.Google Scholar
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17 Jo Mielziner, letter to the author, November 1970.