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Not About Nightingales Tennessee Williams

Not About Nightingales By Tennessee Williams

Not About Nightingales by Tennessee Williams


Condition - Very Good
Out of stock

Summary

This early full-length play put a young Tennessee Williams' passion for social justice in the spotlight. Haunting, searing, unforgettable -London Herald

Not About Nightingales Summary

Not About Nightingales by Tennessee Williams

In early 1998, sixty years after it was written, one of Tennessee Williams' first full-length plays, Not About Nightingales, was premiered by Britain's Royal National Theatre and was immediately hailed as one of the most remarkable theatrical discoveries of the last quarter century (London Evening Standard). Brought to the attention of the director Trevor Nunn by the actress Vanessa Redgrave (who has contributed a Foreword to this edition), this early work...changed our perception of a major writer and still packs a hefty political punch (London Independent). Written in 1938 and based on an actual newspaper story, the play follows the events of a prison atrocity which shocked the nation: convicts leading a hunger strike in a Pennsylvania prison were locked in a steam-heated cell and roasted to death. Williams later said: I have never written anything since that could compete with it in violence and horror. Its sympathetic treatment of black and homosexual characters may have kept the play unproduced in its own time. But its flashes of lyricism and compelling dialogue presage the great plays Williams has yet to write. Not About Nightingales shows us the young playwright (for the first time using his signature Tennessee) as a political writer, passionate about social injustice, and reflecting the plight of outcasts in Depression America. The stylistic influences of European Expressionism, radical American theatre of the 1930s, and popular film make it unique among the group of four early plays. Not About Nightingales has been edited by eminent Williams scholar Allean Hale, who has also provided an illuminating historical introduction.

About Tennessee Williams

Tennessee Williams (1911-1983) was America's most influential playwright. Readers have devoured his poetry, essays, short stories, and letters, as well as his fantastic late plays, his remarkable corpus of one-acts, and his greatest plays-The Glass Menagerie, A Streetcar Named Desire, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, The Night of the Iguana, The Rose Tattoo, Suddenly Last Summer, and Camino Real. Williams is a cornerstone of New Directions-we publish everything he wrote. He is also our single bestselling author.

Additional information

CIN0811213803VG
9780811213806
0811213803
Not About Nightingales by Tennessee Williams
Used - Very Good
Paperback
New Directions Publishing Corporation
19980317
196
N/A
Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
This is a used book - there is no escaping the fact it has been read by someone else and it will show signs of wear and previous use. Overall we expect it to be in very good condition, but if you are not entirely satisfied please get in touch with us

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