Tennessee Williams Annual Review 2023
Number 22
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 Many issues showcase a previously unpublished work by Williams.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
In 1936, a 26-year-old virgin named Tom Williams began a story that emerged in 1943 as a worldly tale by “Tennessee”—but that then vanished. Discovered 80 years later, “The Lost Girl” makes its print debut in the 2023 issue of the Tennessee Williams Annual Review. Essays link the exciting find to milestones in Williams’s life, use filth and silent action as interpretive lenses on his plays, and reevaluate the first onstage interpretation of Blanche DuBois in Japan. Reviews investigate provocative new stage productions, feature photographs from a groundbreaking reimagining of A Streetcar Named Desire at Paris’s famed Comédie-Française, and introduce a collection of stories recently unearthed from the Williams archives.
Tennessee Williams Annual Review 2023
HNOC 2023
softcover • 6" × 9" • 132 pp.
6 color images
ISSN 1097-6035
ISBN 978-0-917860-90-4
$15.00
Table of Contents
Front Matter
Editor’s Note
Introduction to “The Lost Girl”
The author introduces the first-time publication of “The Lost Girl,” Tennessee Williams’s early-career short story about an inexperienced young sailor who falls for a young woman in a Mexican port city, unaware that she is a sex worker interested in him primarily for his money. Three draft versions of the story reveal developments in the playwright’s life during the years 1936 to 1943, during which time Tom Williams moved to New Orleans, began exploring his sexuality, acquired an agent, and experimented with the pen name Valentine Xavier before settling on Tennessee Williams as he pursued a writing career. Historical context includes the Spanish Civil War and the onset of World War II, and literary connections include Williams’s stories “Rubio y Morena” and “The Summer Woman.”
The Lost Girl
First-time publication of a short story written by Tennessee Williams about an inexperienced eighteen-year-old sailor, Jules, who falls for the slightly older woman Lena in a Mexican port city. Lena disappears, and Jules realizes she was a sex worker interested in him for his money. Available in print edition only.
The Jungle and the Unwashed Grape: Utopic Potential of the Filthy City in the Work of Tennessee Williams and Charles Ludlam
The essay focuses on Tennessee Williams’s and Charles Ludlam’s engagement in their plays with the trope of the so-called filthy city in US discourse and the rural-urban binary embedded in the national character. Both writers complicate that binary’s conception of purity and impurity. Includes a brief history of filth studies in the contexts of US literature and queerness. Texts examined include Ludlam’s Bluebeard and Williams’s Suddenly Last Summer and A Streetcar Named Desire.
Shimpa, Onnagata, and Kata: Haruko Sugimura’s Gender Performance in the Japanese Premiere of A Streetcar Named Desire
Haruko Sugimura originated the role of A Streetcar Named Desire’s Blanche DuBois on the Japanese stage in 1953 and played the role until 1987. A founding member of the prestigious Bungakuza theater company, with a background in the Japanese tradition of shimpa acting—a form in between shingeki and kabuki—Sugimura created a kata (a set of codified movements) for Blanche that borrowed techniques of onnagata (male actors who perform female roles in kabuki) and method acting, performed femininity as a construct, and eventually became iconic in Japan. That kata, with its combination of traditions, cultures, and gender possibilities, expanded to become a legacy of performance intertextuality in Japanese theater.
Dumbshow on the Verandah: Silent Action in the Plays of Tennessee Williams
Tennessee Williams blends the classical theater tradition of dumbshow with silent film techniques to create another important layer of theater experience that goes beyond spoken dialogue. Stairs to the Roof, The Glass Menagerie, A Streetcar Named Desire, and The Night of The Iguana all feature a dumbshow and a silent or near-silent tableau at one or more crucial moments. In each such moment, the use of dumbshow underscores, augments, comments on, or re-presents an essential element of the play.
Un tramway nommé Désir, directed by Lee Breuer
Review of Un tramway nommé Désir (A Streetcar Named Desire), translated by Jean-Michel Déprats with Marie-Claire Pasquier, directed by Lee Breuer, 5 February–2 June 2011, Comédie-Française, Paris. The Breuer production was the first time in the history of the Comédie-Française that a text written by an author from the US played the company’s main performance space. The production translated Blanche’s fantasy of pre–Civil War US South tradition into images of japonaiserie, a Western fantasy of Japanese style and ornament. Includes five color images.
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, directed by Mitchell Polonsky and Chloe Claudel, and Bananas Burlesque, directed by Lefty Lucy
Review of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, by Tennessee Williams, directed by Mitchell Polonsky and Chloe Claudel, The Goat Exchange, Friday, 23 September 2022, Provincetown Town Hall, Provincetown, Massachusetts. Production substituted a red clay brick for the character Brick in much of the action. Review of Bananas Burlesque, written and directed by Lefty Lucy, Saturday, 24 September 2022, Crown and Anchor, Provincetown. Production incorporated vaudeville, exaggerated gender performance, and drag to explore gender roles in multiple Williams plays. Both plays staged as part of the 2022 Provincetown Tennessee Williams Festival theme “Tutti Frutti.”
“The Caterpillar Dogs” and Other Early Stories, by Tennessee Williams
“The Caterpillar Dogs” and Other Early Stories, by Tennessee Williams, edited and introduced by Tom Mitchell. New Directions, 2023.
Notes on Contributors
Contributors
Stephen Cedars
John Haman
David Kaplan
Tom Mitchell
Bess Rowen
Takashi Sakai
Tennessee Williams Studies
HNOC is one of four main repositories of the playwright’s work. We produce an annual scholarly journal and conference devoted to Williams, among other research tools, articles, and exhibitions.
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