Sweet Bird of Youth / A Streetcar named Desire / The Glass Menagerie (Penguin Plays) - Softcover

Tennessee Williams

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0140480153 ISBN 13: 9780140480153

Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd, 1969

Synopsis

Now with an insightful new introduction, the author's original Foreword, and the one-act play, The Enemy: Time, on which Sweet Bird of Youth was based.

Tennessee Williams knew how to tell a good tale, and this steamy, wrenching play about a faded movie star, Alexandra Del Lago, and about the lost innocence and corruption of Chance Wayne, reveals the dark side of the American dreams of youth and fame. Distinguished American playwright Lanford Wilson has written an insightful Introduction for this edition. Also included are Williams’ original Foreword to the play; the one-act play The Enemy: Time―the germ for the full-length version, published here for the first time; an essay by Tennessee Williams scholar, Colby H. Kullman; and a chronology of the author’s life.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

The very title of Sweet Bird of Youth is one of ironic pity. The two chief characters--a raddled has-been actress from Hollywood, seeking to forget her present in drugs and sex, and her still handsome masseur-gigolo, who has brought her to his hometown in the South, believing that through her money and faded glamor his gaudy illusions may yet come true--are the reverse side of the American dream of youth. Yet as they work out their fate amid violence and horror, there is nevertheless a note of compassion for the damned.

About the Author:

Tennessee Williams (1911-1983) is the acclaimed author of many books of letters, short stories, poems, essays, and a large collection of plays, including The Glass Menagerie, A Streetcar Named Desire, Camino Real, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Orpheus Descending, The Night of the Iguana, and The Rose Tattoo.

Lanford Wilson is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American playwright, author of the Book of Days, The Gingham dog, and more.

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
• Publication date: 1969
• ISBN 10: 0140480153
• ISBN 13: 9780140480153
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 320