by Sanjana Idnani and India Barton

By Tom Boyd

A talk with Tennessee

Adapted from a talk by Sanjana Idnani and India Barton delivered at Senior Lit Soc

Image by Evelina Obretetskaya

Tennessee Williams is known for his pioneering of New Plastic Theatre, a blend between naturalistic dialogue and expressionistic techniques in order to add a layer of truth to his characters and their experiences. Through his plays, Williams presents a creative portrayal of his characters’ struggles, which undoubtedly moves the audience through the heightened sense of realism and though some of his techniques are not in use today as he originally intended, the productions still clearly convey the issues he wished to portray at the time. Audiences have often been powerfully moved by Williams’ characters but having seen them, one cannot help noticing a number similarities in themes and problems that the characters face, especially in Williams’ three most well-known plays: ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’, ‘The Glass Menagerie’, and ‘Cat On A Hot Tin Roof’. All three of the plays have influences of the Southern Aristocratic culture, though this is presented differently in each play. Blanche, in ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’, has recently emerged from the dead social world of the South and tries to impose the courtly and traditional cultural values in New Orleans where they seem out of place. Similarly, Amanda Wingfield raises her children based on Southern values and especially talks about “cultivating charm.” However, by this point, her world of the South is long gone, intensifying our pity for her. On the other hand, the aristocracy in ‘Cat On A Hot Tin Roof’ is on the cusp of dying as symbolised by the death of the patriarch Big Daddy. Through this, therefore, Williams is able to highlight much more explicitly the corruption of this social world.

Homosexuality is a prominent theme in all three plays as well, this theme being very much reflective of Williams’ own struggles as a homosexual when it was not accepted in society, particularly in the post bellum return to conservative ideals. In ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’, Blanche’s disgust at Allan’s homosexuality leads him to suicide, something that haunts Blanche herself throughout the play. Indeed, Williams reflects the importance of this memory to Blanche’s resulting tragedy by placing this aspect of her past in scene six, the structural heart of this eleven scene play. A similar

plot arc is explored in ‘Cat on a Hot Tin Roof’, as, following the complexities in his relationship with and rejection by Brick, Skipper committed suicide. Brick, haunted by this, is apathetic throughout the play and resorts to extreme alcoholism, completely separate from the will of his wife and surrounding family. Though homosexuality is not overtly explored in ‘The Glass Menagerie’, this play is the most autobiographical of the three and therefore Tom’s consistent disappearances to the movies at night is often interpreted as a euphemism for his repressed homosexuality. Lastly, a poignant theme across Williams’ plays is the effect of mental health. This aspect of Williams’ plays are particularly personal to him due to his own sister being institutionalised and eventually having to undergo a lobotomy for her “sexual dreams” from which she never recovered. In Blanche’s case, she seems to experience extreme PTSD following the suicide of her husband Allan and Williams’ use of New Plastic Techniques, such as the persistent haunting of the Varsourviana music that played on the night of Allan’s death and the following gunshot that only Blanche and the audience can hear, provides us with a greater insight into Blanche’s struggles with mental health. Aspects of PTSD are also explored in ‘Cat On a Hot Tin Roof’ as Brick turns to addiction to cope. This focus on mental health is further illustrated through the dominance of fantasy in ‘Streetcar’ as Blanche’s life and beliefs no longer have a basis in reality. A similar coping strategy is seen by Amanda in ‘The Glass Menagerie’, who also appears to be stuck in the past of her childhood in Blue Mountain as a Southern Belle and tries to impose similar customs on the changed reality around her. However, the closest mirroring to Williams’ sister in this play is Laura who suffers crippling social anxiety, represented physically through the clump noise made by her leg brace which intensifies her anxiety. Laura is nicknamed “Blue Roses” in the play, which creates a direct link between Laura’s character and Williams’ sister Rose. These are three dominant themes of many (such as wealth and alcoholism) that are paralleled across the play; however, the similarities across these plays leave us with the question of whether this is a good thing within theatre. Do we feel this formula of themes becomes repetitive? Would we rather some of Williams’ plays branched out from aspects of his autobiography into other subject areas? Some may favour this, however we still believe that each one of these plays holds a distinct charm heightened by the various techniques used in each and also variations in the characters who experience these issues. While ‘The Glass Menagerie’ is largely autobiographical, ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ is much more blurred in where the character and personality of Williams himself is located in each character as we see parts of his struggles reflected in Blanche, Mitch, Stella, and Allan. Therefore, while many of Williams’ plays have similar themes, it does not undermine the distinct uniqueness of each play in its own right.