Characters in his plays are often seen as representations of his family members. Laura Wingfield in
The Glass Menagerie was understood to be modeled on Rose. Some biographers believed that the character of Blanche DuBois in
A Streetcar Named Desire is also based on her.
Amanda Wingfield in
The Glass Menagerie was generally seen to represent Williams' mother, Edwina. Characters such as Tom Wingfield in
The Glass Menagerie and Sebastian in
Suddenly, Last Summer were understood to represent Williams himself. In addition, he used a lobotomy operation as a motif in
Suddenly, Last Summer.
The Pulitzer Prize for Drama was awarded to
A Streetcar Named Desire in 1948 and to
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof in 1955. These two plays were later filmed, with great success, by noted directors Elia Kazan (
Streetcar) with whom Williams developed a very close artistic relationship, and Richard Brooks (
Cat). Both plays included references to elements of Williams' life such as homosexuality, mental instability, and alcoholism. Although
The Flowering Peach by Clifford Odets was the preferred choice of the Pulitzer Prize jury in 1955 and
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof was at first considered the weakest of the five shortlisted nominees, Joseph Pulitzer Jr., chairman of the Board, had seen
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and thought it worthy of the drama prize. The Board went along with him after considerable discussion.
Williams wrote
The Parade, or Approaching the End of a Summer when he was 29 and worked on it through his life. It seemed an autobiographical depiction of an early romance in Provincetown, Massachusetts. This play was produced for the first time on October 1, 2006 in Provincetown by the Shakespeare on the Cape production company, as part of the First Annual Provincetown Tennessee Williams Festival.
Other works by Williams include
Camino Real and
Sweet Bird of Youth.
His last play went through many drafts as he was trying to reconcile what would be the end of his life [4]. There are many versions of it, but it is referred to as
In Masks Outrageous and Austere.
Plays
Apprentice plays
- Candles to the Sun (1936)
- Spring Storm (1937)
- Me Vaysha (1937)
- Fugitive Kind (1937)
- Not About Nightingales (1938)
- I Rise in Flame, Cried the Phoenix (1941)
- Orpheus Descending (1945)
- You Touched Me (1945)
- Stairs to the Roof (1947)
Major plays
- The Glass Menagerie (1944)
- A Streetcar Named Desire (1947)
- Summer and Smoke (1948)
- The Rose Tattoo (1951)
- Camino Real (1953)
- Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955)
- Orpheus Descending (1957)
- Suddenly, Last Summer (1958)
- Sweet Bird of Youth (1959)
- Period of Adjustment (1960)
- The Night of the Iguana (1961)
- The Eccentricities of a Nightingale (1962, rewriting of Summer and Smoke)
- The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore (1963)
- The Mutilated (1965)
- The Seven Descents of Myrtle (1968, aka Kingdom of Earth)
- In the Bar of a Tokyo Hotel (1969)
- Will Mr. Merriweather Return from Memphis? (1969)
- Small Craft Warnings (1972)
- The Two-Character Play (1973)
- Out Cry (1973, rewriting of The Two-Character Play)
- The Red Devil Battery Sign (1975)
- This Is (1976)
- Vieux Carré (1977)
- A Lovely Sunday for Creve Coeur (1979)
- Clothes for a Summer Hotel (1980)
- The Notebook of Trigorin (1980)
- Something Cloudy, Something Clear (1981)
- A House Not Meant to Stand (1982)
- In Masks Outrageous and Austere (1983)
Novels
- The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone (1950, filmed 1961)
- Moise and the World of Reason (1975)
Screenplays
- Baby Doll (1956)
- The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond (1957, filmed 2009)
Short stories
- The Vengeance of Nitocris (1928)
- The Field of Blue Children (1939)
- The Resemblance Between a Violin Case and a Coffin (1951)
- A Book of Stories (1954)
- Three Players of a Summer Game and Other Stories (1960)
- a Novella and Four Short Stories (1966)
- One Arm and Other Stories (1967)
- One Arm
- The Malediction
- The Poet
- Chronicle of a Demise
- Desire and the Black Masseur
- Portrait of a Girl in Glass
- The Important Thing
- The Angel in the Alcove
- The Field of Blue Children
- The Night of the Iguana
- The Yellow Bird
- a Book of Stories (1974)
- Tent Worms (1980)
- It Happened the day the Sun Rose, and Other Stories (1981)
One-act plays
Tennessee Williams wrote over 70 one-act plays during his lifetime. The one-acts explored many of the same themes that dominated his longer works. Williams' major collections are published by New Directions in New York City.
- American Blues (1948)
- Mister Paradise and Other One-Act Plays
- Dragon Country: a book of one-act plays (1970)
- The Traveling Companion and Other Plays
- 27 Wagons Full of Cotton and Other Plays (1946 and 1953)
- «Something wild...» (introduction) (1953)
- 27 Wagons Full of Cotton (1946 and 1953)
- The Purification (1946 and 1953)
- The Lady of Larkspur Lotion (1946 and 1953)
- The Last of My Solid Gold Watches (1946 and 1953)
- Portrait of a Madonna (1946 and 1953)
- Auto-da-Fé (1946 and 1953)
- Lord Byron's Love Letter (1946 and 1953)
- The Strangest Kind of Romance (1946 and 1953)
- The Long Goodbye (1946 and 1953)
- At Liberty (1946)
- Moony's Kid Don't Cry (1946)
- Hello from Bertha (1946 and 1953)
- This Property Is Condemned (1946 and 1953)
- Talk to Me Like the Rain and Let Me Listen... (1953)
- Something Unspoken (1953)
- The Theatre of Tennessee Williams, Volume VI
- The Theatre of Tennessee Williams, Volume VII
Selected works
- Gussow, Mel and Holditch, Kenneth, eds. Tennessee Williams, Plays 1937-1955 (Library of America, 2000) ISBN 978-1-883011-86-4.
- Spring Storm
- Not About Nightingales
- Battle of Angels
- I Rise in Flame, Cried the Phoenix
- from 27 Wagons Full of Cotton (1946)
- 27 Wagons Full of Cotton
- The Lady of Larkspur Lotion
- The Last of My Solid Gold Watches
- Portrait of a Madonna
- Auto-da-Fé
- Lord Byron's Love Letter
- This Property Is Condemned
- The Glass Menagerie
- A Streetcar Named Desire
- Summer and Smoke
- The Rose Tattoo
- Camino Real
- from 27 Wagons Full of Cotton (1953)
- "Something Wild"
- Talk to Me Like the Rain and Let Me Listen
- Something Unspoken
- Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
- Gussow, Mel and Holditch, Kenneth, eds. Tennessee Williams, Plays 1957-1980 (Library of America, 2000) ISBN 978-1-883011-87-1.
- Orpheus Descending
- Suddenly Last Summer
- Sweet Bird of Youth
- Period of Adjustment
- The Night of the Iguana
- The Eccentricities of a Nightingale
- The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore
- The Mutilated
- Kingdom of Earth (The Seven Descents of Myrtle)
- Small Craft Warnings
- Out Cry
- Vieux Carré
- A Lovely Sunday for Creve Coeur
Related Works
A book is coming out soon by a former assistant, Scott. John Uecker has also directed Williams' plays in addition to creating an edit of In Masks Outrageous and Austere.