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Tennessee Williams Annual Review 2020

Number 19

Founded in 1998, the Tennessee Williams Annual Review remains the only journal devoted to the works, worldwide influence, and cultural context of one of the most pivotal playwrights of the 20th century. Many issues showcase a previously unpublished work by Williams.

In this issue

Previously accessible only in archives, a compiled version of Williams’s tense short story “Why Did Desdemona Love the Moor?” appears here in print for the first time, assembled from fragments and possibly too controversial to publish during his lifetime. Inside, essays treat readers to rare images of Ingmar Bergman’s 1950s staging of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, moving fan letters written to the playwright during his lifetime, and a reconstruction of the long-lost musical soundscape Paul Bowles composed for Sweet Bird of Youth.

A man in a robe sits in front of a vanity mirror, holding a cane, with a lamp and ornate mirror visible. The cover reads The Tennessee Williams Annual Review Number 19—2020 in stylized text on a pink background.

Tennessee Williams Annual Review 2020

Number 19 

HNOC, 2020
softcover • 6" × 9" • 154 pp.
1 color image, 8 b&w images
ISSN 1097-6035
ISBN 978-0-917860-84-3

$15.00

Front Matter

Editor’s Note

R. Barton Palmer

Introduction to “Why Did Desdemona Love the Moor?”

Tom Mitchell

Tom Mitchell introduces the first-time publication of a general readers’ edition of Tennessee Williams’s short story “Why Did Desdemona Love the Moor?” which Mitchell compiled and edited. The essay goes into detail about the contents and known history of the draft pages existing in the archives. The editor describes his process of assembling the story from the manuscript versions, enumerating the editorial decisions made and the thought process behind them.

Previously Unpublished

Why Did Desdemona Love the Moor?

Tennessee Williams
edited by Tom Mitchell (available only in print edition)

A general readers’ edition of Tennessee Williams’s short story “Why Did Desdemona Love the Moor?” assembled by Tom Mitchell from draft pages in the archives. The narrative centers on a love affair between a Black writer and the white movie star acting in the Hollywood film he has written. Available in print edition only.

Cat without Claws: Death and Homophobia in Ingmar Bergman’s Production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

Dirk Gindt

Critics have overlooked revered director Ingman Bergman’s 1956 stage production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof in Malmö, Sweden, which starred the now-legendary actor Max von Sydow (then on the verge of breakthrough in Bergman’s The Seventh Seal and Peer Gynt), Eva Stiberg, and Benkt-Åke Benktsson. Building on extensive archival material, including the director’s notebook and working diaries, the main actors’ rehearsal scripts, and production reviews, the essay demonstrates the extent to which Bergman and his heteronormative social politics stripped the production of Williams’s daring representation of gender, female sexual desire, and closeted male homosexuality in the Cold War period. The author proposes that Bergman’s peculiar and intrinsically homophobic interpretation of Cat be understood through the lens of The Seventh Seal (in postproduction at the time) and the director’s mid-1950s preoccupation with the inevitability of death and with the difficulty of achieving honest, authentic communication between people and through art. Includes 5 b/w images. 

“Remembered Music”: Retrieving the Lost Sounds of Sweet Bird of Youth 

Gabe C. Alfieri

Sound and music were demonstrably important to Tennessee Williams’s theatrical aesthetic, and of the first-rate musicians involved, Paul Bowles, Williams’s composer of choice, scored more of the playwright’s premieres than any other composer. Bowles also set many of Williams’s poems and lyrics to music. Bowles’s score for the premiere of Sweet Bird of Youth (directed by Elia Kazan) was recorded but, as of this essay’s writing, remains lost. To address the gap, the essay collects and looks at surviving documents, which suggest the original production was rich with musical details, both newly composed cues used as underscoring (notably the mysterious “Lament”) and preexisting popular tunes used as source music. Exploring the evidence known to exist allows a richer understanding of music’s importance in the play, its role in Kazan’s evolving ideas about the original production, and its position in Williams’s dramatic imagination. 

Williams’s Queer Fan Mail and Collective Memory

Daniel Ciba

The trope of the tragic homosexual oppressively dominates readings of Tennessee Williams’s life and of the autobiographical elements of his plays. To counter this narrative, which sees Williams as inherently tragic because of his gay identity, the essay examines fan mail written to the playwright in the 1980s. Treating the letters as evidence in an argument that uses fan theory and the concept of collective memory, the essay attempts to reclaim Williams’s life and works—and the lived experience of queer people at the time—from a narrative that dwells on isolation and that misinterprets how his queer audience understood his contributions to queer identity. Samples of fan mail written to Williams show the playwright’s persona as an openly gay person inspiring hope, and read together the letters become a model of queer agency that responds to societal oppression by imagining community. 

Book Review

Tennessee Williams in Sweden and France, 1945–1965, by Dirk Gindt

Tison Pugh

Tennessee Williams in Sweden and France, 1945–1965: Cultural Translations, Sexual Anxieties, and Racial Fantasies, by Dirk Gindt. Methuen Drama–Bloombsury, 2019.

Theater Review

The Night of the Iguana, directed by Fred Abrahamse

Bess Rowen

Review of The Night of the Iguana, by Tennessee Williams, directed by Fred Abrahamse, Abrahamse and Meyer Productions, Saturday, 28 September 2019, Provincetown Theater, Provincetown, Massachusetts. Production incorporated elements of Japanaese Noh theater tradition. Play staged as part of the 2019 Provincetown Tennessee Williams Festival theme “Tennessee Williams and Yukio Mishima.” 

In Memoriam: Nancy M. Tischler

Robert Bray

Notes on Contributors

Contributors

Gabe C. Alfieri

Salve Regina University

Robert Bray

Middle Tennessee State University

Daniel Ciba

Ramapo College of New Jersey

Dirk Gindt

Stockholm University

Tom Mitchell

University of Illinois (emeritus)

Tison Pugh

University of Central Florida

Bess Rowen

Villanova University
Research

Tennessee Williams Studies

About TWAR

Although submissions are welcomed at any point, August 15 serves as the deadline for those wishing to have work published in March of the following year.

 

The Tennessee Williams Annual Review invites academic writing on all aspects of the Williams oeuvre, including his plays, poetry, prose, and correspondence. Studies of the productions of his plays and technical analyses of stagecraft and institutional issues are also welcome. Founded in 1998, the journal routinely publishes brief texts that emerge from the ongoing examination of Williams’s literary records (usually draft versions of plays). Of particular interest is the history of the reception of Williams’s work—and the public persona cultivated by the author—in the postwar Broadway renaissance and in the period roughly from 1940 to 1980, in the US and abroad. Also of interest are the lasting effects of Williams’s work on the cinema of the 1950s and after. The editors are also eager to consider work devoted to present-day productions of recently discovered and newly edited texts.

 

In addition to work that focuses primarily on Williams, the journal is interested in studies of his contemporaries—of playwrights and other creative personnel as well—and of relevant issues (e.g., the queer history of the period). Especially welcome is scholarship that draws on archival sources and helps illuminate the material history of Williams’s literary output, as well as the culture his work and public persona both reflected and shaped.

 

Specifications

 

All submissions should be 4,500 to 9,000 words long, including notes but not including works cited, and should follow the most recent MLA guidelines.

 

Please prepare submissions in a recent version of Microsoft Word and send them as email attachments to Margit Longbrake, managing editor (Margit.Longbrake@hnoc.org).

 

Author anonymity: Authors should redact their names from their essays before submission, and notes or references to the author’s previous work should be in the third person. The journal will make every effort to respect the privacy of reviewers and readers of manuscripts submitted for review.

 

All quotations, sources, and images should be fully cited in such a way that the original source can be located. Authors must fully cite in the manuscript, at submission, their use of all content (whether text, images, data, or other) created by an AI tool. All submissions must carry assurance that they have been submitted exclusively to the Tennessee Williams Annual Review.

 

Permission to use any copyrighted, third-party material will need to be obtained before the contribution is published. Authors will be required to sign a license granting the Tennessee Williams Annual Review the right to publish. The license will ask authors to warrant that they are the original and sole authors of the work and that no material has been plagiarized from other sources.

Editor

Annette J. Saddik, City University of New York

 

Managing Editor

Margit Longbrake, Historic New Orleans Collection and Williams Research Center

 

Founding and Consulting Editor

Robert Bray, Middle Tennessee State University (emeritus)

 

Editorial Board

John S. Bak, Université de Lorraine

Ramón Espejo Romero, Universidad de Sevilla

Tison Pugh, University of Central Florida

Matthew C. Roudané, Georgia State University

David Savran, Graduate Center, City University of New York

 

Past editorial board members

Thomas P. Adler, Purdue University

George W. Crandell, Auburn University 

Jessica Dorman, Historic New Orleans Collection and Williams Research Center

Allean Hale, University of Illinois, Urbana

Philip C. Kolin, University of Southern Mississippi

R. Barton Palmer, Clemson University (emeritus)

Nancy M. Tischler, Pennsylvania State University

PUBLISHER

 

The Tennessee Williams Annual Review (ISSN 1097-6035) is published annually by the Historic New Orleans Collection and Williams Research Center.

 

Tennessee Williams Annual Review

Historic New Orleans Collection

522 Royal Street

New Orleans, Louisiana 70130

 

Online versions of issues 1 through 17 (1998 through 2018) can be accessed in our archives. Print copies of many back issues can be purchased from the Shop at the Historic New Orleans Collection.

 

 

STATEMENT OF PUBLICATION ETHICS

 

Guiding principles

Initially published in 1998 by Middle Tennessee State University and published since 2005 by the Historic New Orleans Collection, the Tennessee Williams Annual Review is committed to presenting high-quality peer-reviewed scholarship and to the responsible publication of valuable original work uncovered in the ongoing process of examining Tennessee Williams’s literary papers. The Review’s processes are guided by ethical best practices for academic journals of arts and literature.

 

Process 

Scholarly essays submitted to the journal for consideration are evaluated first by the editor. Those deemed to have potential for the journal undergo a double-blind peer-evaluation process at the end of which a decision is made by editorial board vote. Manuscripts submitted or invited for the journal’s Previously Unpublished section and other special features where anonymity is not possible are evaluated according to the rigorous standards applied to blind submissions.

 

Professional conduct 

The journal makes every effort to respect the privacy of authors and readers of manuscripts. Editors, reviewers, and authors are expected to communicate and conduct themselves respectfully and professionally. Discrimination, intimidation, or harassment of any kind is unacceptable.

 

Plagiarism 

The journal is strictly against unethical copying or plagiarism in any form. Prior to publication, authors will be asked to sign an agreement warranting that they are the original and sole authors of the work; that no material has been plagiarized from other sources; and that permission to use any copyrighted third-party material has been or will be obtained before the contribution is published. 

 

Author responsibilities

 

Originality

Authors should submit only original, unpublished work. Any content derived from previous publications, including previously published work by the author, should be accompanied by the relevant citation. Authors must fully cite in the manuscript, at submission, their use of all content (whether text, images, data, or other) created by an AI tool.

 

Author anonymity

Authors of essays submitted for consideration should redact their names from the document before submission, and notes or references to the author’s previous work should be in the third person.

 

Integrity and intellectual property

Authors must guarantee that their submitted work contains no libelous material or content that infringes on the copyright of another party. All quotations, sources, and images should be fully cited in such a way that the original source can be identified. All submissions must carry assurance that they have been submitted exclusively to The Tennessee Williams Annual Review

 

Editor and reviewer responsibilities

 

Confidentiality 

All manuscripts received for review are confidential documents; they must not be circulated or discussed outside the journal's editorial team except if authorized by the editor. Unpublished original material in a submitted manuscript must not be used in an editor’s or reviewer’s own research without the written consent of the author. Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential. 

 

Standards of objectivity

Reviews should be conducted objectively and observations formulated clearly with supporting evidence. Personal criticism of the authors is inappropriate.

 

Acknowledgment of sources 

Reviewers are asked to identify relevant published work not cited in the submission. Reviewers should also identify any substantial similarity between the submission and any other published or unpublished work they may know about.

 

Conflict of interest

Any reviewer who sees a possible conflict of interest arising from their relation to the author or to the research described in the manuscript should notify the editor, so that the potential conflict may be discussed and an alternative reviewer chosen if needed.

 

Publisher responsibilities

 

Handling of unethical publishing behavior

In cases of alleged or proven research misconduct, fraudulent publication, or plagiarism, the publisher will confer with the editor and will take appropriate measures to clarify the situation and determine what action may be necessary. Steps may include the publication of an erratum or the retraction of the work. The publisher, together with the editors, shall take reasonable measures to prevent the journal from publishing work in which research misconduct has occurred. Neither the editors nor the publisher shall encourage or knowingly allow such misconduct to take place.

 

Access to journal content 

The publisher is committed to the permanent availability and preservation of scholarly research and ensures accessibility by partnering with organizations and maintaining its own digital archive.

 

Author fees 

Authors are not charged any submission, processing, or publication fees by the publisher.

 

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSING

 

Authors retain the copyright to their published work. Authors will be required to sign a license granting the journal the right to publish, a right that is exclusive for one year after publication. Thereafter the right becomes nonexclusive, and authors may publish the work at their discretion, provided that the Tennessee Williams Annual Review be cited as the first publisher. The license will ask authors to warrant that they are the original and sole authors of the work; that no material has been plagiarized from other sources; and that permission to use any copyrighted, third-party material has been or will be obtained before the contribution is published. 

Thomas P. Adler, Purdue University

Mauricio D. Aguilera Linde, University of Granada 

Shelley Akers, Independent scholar

Gabe C. Alfieri, Salve Regina University

Alicia Andrzejewski, Graduate Center, City University of New York

José I. Badenes, Loyola Marymount University

John S. Bak, Université de Lorraine

Mark Bernard, Carson-Newman College

Larry Blades, Independent scholar 

Darrell Bourque, University of Louisiana, Lafayette

Will Brantley, Middle Tennessee State University

Robert Bray, Middle Tennessee State University

Mary F. Brewer, Loughborough University

Juanita Cabello, Independent scholar

Bert Cardullo

Virginia Spencer Carr, Georgia State University

Claudia Wilsch Case, Lehman University

Mark Cave, Historic New Orleans Collection 

Stephen Cedars, Graduate Center, City University of New York

Daniel Ciba, Ramapo College

Bernadette Clemens, Case Western Reserve University

Craig Clinton, Reed College

Ruby Cohn, University of California, Davis

Christopher Conlon, Writer and independent scholar

George W. Crandell, Auburn University

David A. Davis, Mercer University

Rose De Angelis, Marist College

Gilbert Debusscher, University of Brussels

Albert J. Devlin, University of Missouri

Carlos Dews, University of West Florida, Pensacola

Matt DiCintio, Robert Penn Warren Center for the Humanities

Marianne DiQuattro, Rollins College

Linda Dorff, University of Houston

Barbara Ewell, Loyola University, New Orleans

Joe Falocco, Catawba College

Adriana Falqueto Lemos, Universidade Federal do Espírito Santo

James Francis, Texas A&M University

Michael D. Freese, American University of Central Asia

Raymond-Jean Frontain, University of Central Arkansas

Tiffany Gilbert, University of North Carolina, Wilmington

Dirk Gindt, Stockholm University

Charles A. Goldthwaite, Jr., Writer and independent scholar

Jess Gregg, Writer

Robert J. Grosch

Maxim M. Gudkov, St. Petersburg State University

Allean Hale, University of Illinois, Urbana

John Haman, University of the South

Gary Harrington, Salisbury University

Michael Hooper, Independent scholar

Christina Hunter, University of Southern Mississippi

David Kaplan, Provincetown Tennessee Williams Theater Festival

Thomas Keith, New Directions Publishing

Philip C. Kolin, University of Southern Mississippi

Jean Kontaxopoulos, Conseil de l’Union européenne

Richard E. Kramer, Writer and independent scholar

Colby Kullman, University of Mississippi

Ciarán Leinster, University College Dublin A&LL Centre

David Leopold, Al Hirschfeld Foundation

Lindy Levin, Center for the Study of Women, University of California, Los Angeles

Margit Longbrake, Historic New Orleans Collection

Jeffrey B. Loomis, Northwest Missouri State University

Deborah Martinson, Occidental College

Sophie Maruéjouls-Koch, Université de Toulouse II–Le Mirail

Michele Meek, Bridgewater State University

Tom Mitchell, University of Illinois, Urbana

Irene Morra, University of Toronto

Clay Morton, Macon State College

Nick Moschovakis, Writer and independent scholar

Brenda Murphy, University of Connecticut

Barbara Neri, Writer and independent scholar

Claire Nicolay, Loyola University, Chicago

Jacqueline O’Connor, Boise State University

Michael C. O’Neill, Lafayette College

Michael Paller, American Conservatory Theatre, San Francisco

R. Barton Palmer, Clemson University

Brian Parker, University of Toronto

Brian M. Peters, Champlain College, Saint-Lambert

Alexander Pettit, University of North Texas

Tison Pugh, University of Central Florida

Stefanie Quinlan, Independent scholar

David Radavich, Eastern Illinois University

Naghmeh Rezaie, University of Delaware

Matthew C. Roudané, Georgia State University

John Rowell, Columbia College

Bess Rowen, Villanova University

Annette J. Saddik, Graduate Center and City Tech, City University of New York

Takashi Sakai, Fukuoka University

M. Tyler Sasser, University of Alabama

David Savran, Graduate Center, City University of New York

Michael R. Schiavi, New York Institute of Technology, Manhattan

James Schlatter, University of Pennsylvania

Henry I. Schvey, Washington University, St. Louis

Dean Shackelford, Southeast Missouri State University

Dorothy Shapiro

Emerson José Simões da Silva, Instituto Federal de Educação, Ciência e Tecnologia do Sul de Minas

Lori Leathers Single, Georgia State University

Neil Sinyard, University of Hull

John Sykes, Wingate University

Nancy M. Tischler, Pennsylvania State University

Julie Vatain-Corfdir, Sorbonne Université

Ralph F. Voss, University of Alabama

Alison Walls, Graduate Center, City University of New York

Edwina Dakin Williams

Tennessee Williams

Harvey Young, Northwestern University

Laura Torres Zúñiga, Catholic University, Murcia