Tennessee Williams Annual Review 2024
Number 23
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 Many issues showcase a previously unpublished work by Williams.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
I went out drinking that night in the company of friends that were mine,
not yours,
and when I returned after midnight, a telephone call let me know
that you had died at eleven.
—from “The Final Day of Your Life,” by Tennessee Williams
Appearing for the first time in print, Tennessee Williams’s moving poem “The Final Day of Your Life” describes the playwright’s last visit with Frank Merlo, his life companion of nearly 15 years. Midcentury discrimination kept their loving, turbulent same-sex relationship out of the public eye, but in private Williams could pen his conflicted grief in straightforward language. Inside the issue, scholars explore a little-known painting by Williams and highlight new biographical material, and a treasure trove of essays on inventive stage productions show the playwright’s work reflecting and shaping cultural contexts on two continents.
Tennessee Williams Annual Review 2024
HNOC 2024
softcover • 6" × 9" • 160 pp.
8 color images
ISSN 1097-6035
ISBN 978-0-917860-92-8
$15.00
Table of Contents
Front Matter
Editor’s Note
Introduction to “The Final Day of Your Life”
The author introduces the first-time publication of “The Final Day of Your Life,” a poem written by Tennessee Williams about visiting Frank Merlo (1921–63), his life companion of nearly 15 years, in the hospital the day before Merlo died. Mid-twentieth-century prejudices against homosexuality kept their loving but tumultuous relationship closeted in public. The essay sketches Merlo’s background and impact on the playwright, incorporating letters and other writing by Williams, as well as research from Merlo’s cousin (Joey Merlo), among other sources. The author provides historical context such as the Lavender Scare, the work of Alfred Kinsey, and the pathologizing of homosexuality. The poem’s direct language is compared with Williams’s more metaphorical writing about Merlo in “Little Horse” and other poems published in In the Winter of Cities.
The Final Day of Your Life
First-time publication of poem written by Tennessee Williams about visiting his longtime partner Frank Merlo in the hospital the day before Merlo died. Available in print edition only.
The Rose Tattoo in Dublin, 1957 and 2023: From the Police in the Lane to the President in the Banana Warehouse
The essay examines 1957 and 2023 Dublin productions of The Rose Tattoo in the context of censorship, politics, the Catholic Church, discrimination, and theater history in 20th- and 21st-century Ireland. In 1957, warring political factions generated a scandal around the Pike Theatre’s Rose Tattoo: directors Alan Simpson and Carolyn Swift won their legal case against manufactured charges of obscenity, but the production’s shutdown led to the demise of an important cutting-edge theater. In 2023, director Vanessa Fielding worked with the Tennessee Williams estate and members of the Traveller community to reimagine the play’s US Italian immigrant community as Irish Travellers, spotlighting the community’s experiences of discrimination. The Fielding production (attended by Irish president Andrew Higgins) implicitly showed The Rose Tattoo functioning as an invitation to look critically at relationships between government and art in Ireland and to measure the nation’s progress on complex social issues.
“Before We Met”: Tennessee Williams, Robert Carter, and the “Catastrophe” of Post-1945 Friendships
Tennessee Williams’s brief love affair in 1944–45 with University of Chicago undergraduate Robert “Bob” Carter, who had reviewed Williams’s poetry for the university newspaper, was perhaps the last friendship Williams established before The Glass Menagerie made him famous. Williams dedicated “Electric Avenue,” an early draft of A Streetcar Named Desire, to Carter, who later became a Catholic priest and prominent figure in the gay rights movement and the LGBTQ organization DignityUSA. The essay traces biographical details and shows the relationship offering insight into Williams’s works (especially Blanche DuBois) and into his personal life and themes, including the increasingly predatory nature the playwright saw emerging in himself after what he called “the catastrophe of success.”
In Search of a Plastic Theater: The Case of Summer and Smoke
Tennessee Williams’s concept of “plastic theater” becomes clearer when one understands that the playwright revised his plays continually throughout his life and worked through themes in various media, including plays, short stories, poetry, and painting. The essay compares the play Summer and Smoke with its alternative forms as the short story “The Yellow Bird” and Williams’s little-known oil painting “By That Time Summer and Smoke Were Past. . . .” Visual elements in the play, story, and painting are linked to religious artwork, Giorgio DeChirico, Hart Crane, and biographical elements, particularly Williams’s childhood and religious upbringing in St. Louis.
A Streetcar Named Desire, directed by Jeremy Seghers, and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, directed by Alexander Iacuzzo
Review of A Streetcar Named Desire, by Tennessee Williams, directed by Jeremy Seghers, Timucua Arts Foundation, June 2023, Orlando, Florida, and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, by Williams, directed by Alexander Iacuzzo, Wildfire Players, July 2023, Penguin Point Productions, Oviedo, Florida. Review contextualizes the productions amid Florida Senate Bill 1432, the Protection of Children Act. The Seghers production starred the actor and trans woman Indigo Leigh as Blanche. The Iacuzzo production assumed Brick’s queerness and, by removing child actors, emphasized the sexuality and the childishness of the adults.
A Streetcar Named Desire, directed by Stefan Larsson
Review of A Streetcar Named Desire, by Tennessee Williams, directed by Stefan Larsson, Royal Dramatic Theatre, 29 March 2019, Stockholm, Sweden. Review discusses performing a play with so much domestic violence in the context of feminism and the #tystnadtagning movement (Sweden’s version of the #MeToo movement), which exposed widespread abuse and misconduct in the performing arts and film sector.
The Rose Tattoo, directed by Bonnie J. Monte
Review of The Rose Tattoo by Tennessee Williams, directed by Bonnie J. Monte, Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey, June 2023, Madison, New Jersey. Featuring Dino Curia, Anthony Marble, and Antoinette LaVecchia. Mentioned: The Rose Tattoo by Tennessee Williams, directed by Trip Cullman, Roundabout Theatre Company, American Airlines Theatre, fall 2019. Featuring Marisa Tomei and Emun Elliott. Social realism of STNJ production contrasts with poetic, carnivalesque treatment of the Broadway production.
Stairs to the Roof, directed by Marios Mettis
Review of Stairs to the Roof, by Tennessee Williams, directed by Marios Mettis, Hamm Productions, Saturday, 23 September 2023, Fisherman Hall, Provincetown, Massachusetts. Production emphasized expressionism in Williams. Staged as part of 2023 Provincetown Tennessee Williams Theater Festival theme “Science Fiction and Fantasy.”
American Blues, directed by Jim Niesen
Review of American Blues, by Tennessee Williams, directed by Jim Niesen, Irondale Ensemble Project, 24 November 2023, Space at Irondale, Brooklyn, New York. Production staged the five separate short plays in the American Blues collection (Moony’s Kid Don’t Cry; The Dark Room; The Case of the Crushed Petunias; The Long Stay Cut Short, or The Unsatisfactory Supper; Ten Blocks on the Camino Real) as a connected group, an immersive theater experience under the umbrella title “American Century Part 2.”
Blanche: The Life and Times of Williams’s Greatest Creation, by Nancy Schoenberger
Blanche: The Life and Times of Tennessee Williams’s Greatest Creation, by Nancy Schoenberger. HarperCollins, 2023.
Arthur Miller: American Witness, by John Lahr
Arthur Miller: American Witness, by John Lahr. Yale UP, 2022.
ReFocus: The Literary Films of Robert Brooks, edited by R. Barton Palmer and Homer B. Pettey
ReFocus: The Literary Films of Robert Brooks, edited by R. Barton Palmer and Homer B. Pettey. Edinburgh UP, 2023.
Notes on Contributors
Contributors
John S. Bak
Stephen Cedars
Marianne DiQuattro
Dirk Gindt
Thomas Keith
Ciarán Leinster
R. Barton Palmer
Bess Rowen
Annette J. Saddik
Henry I. Schvey
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