Chapter 8 Life is like a play

- Confessions of Tennessee Williams Tennessee Williams (Tennessee Williams) passed away in 1983, and the American drama and literary circles began to make a conclusion for Williams. The general critics mostly praised Williams as the first person in American theater after Eugene O'Neill. Some people even thought that Williams Williams should at least be on an equal footing with O'Neill. Even theater critics who criticized Williams' late works have to admit that Williams is a brilliant milestone in the history of American theater.In the past few years after Williams passed away, as long as he went to theaters large and small in the United States for a week, he would probably bump into several characters in Williams’ plays on the stage: Lorna, Blanche, and Maggie. Because of his famous plays " The Glass Menagerie, "A Streetcar Named Desire" and "The Cat on a Hot Roof" have already become well-known classics and have been performed repeatedly in American theaters.In fact, Williams has been a lively and extraordinary figure in the American theater circle for more than 30 years since his "The Glass Menagerie" was staged in 1945, with ups and downs and vigor and vitality.He rose so rapidly that in 1947 "A Streetcar Named Desire" premiered on Broadway, and the New York audience went crazy for it.Williams personally took the stage to call the curtain, the audience applauded non-stop for half an hour, and there were rave reviews at the moment, and the world theater circles were impressed.Before long, the play crossed the sea to London and Rome to stage.In London, it was directed by British stage giant Lawrence Oliver, and the lead actress Vivien Leigh played Blanche. The grand performance can be imagined.The performance in Rome is not too bad, the director is directed by the master of drama Visconti, and the heroine is Anna Magnani (Anna Magnani), the queen of Italian drama.Williams conquered Europe, and his plays went on to be performed in France, Sweden, and even Russia.With Europeans' sense of cultural superiority, it is indeed not easy for American playwrights to feel proud on the European stage.Of course, the success of the New York performance of "A Streetcar Named Desire" was a major key, which was directed by the great director Erica Hill.Williams was fortunate to have worked closely with Kazan throughout his life. Kazan was his confidant and friend. Later, "A Streetcar Named Desire" was adapted into a movie, still directed by Kazan. The "A Streetcar Named Desire" movie also became a classic, for which Vivien Leigh won her second Academy Award.The premiere in New York, Marlon Brando became famous, he played the role of Stanley, and the original and rough male power swept the American audience.When the play was reincarnated in various countries around the world, Williams was at the forefront.He has been popular for fifteen years, one drama after another, "Wild Cat on a Hot Roof", 700 performances in one performance, "Summer Smoke", "Youth Bird", "Rose Tattoo", "Suddenly Gone" Summer", until "Night of the Lizard" in 1961, bursts of applause and drama awards came one after another.At the same time, seventeen of his works were put on the screen again, gaining both fame and fortune for a while, and Williams became the proud son of the American film and television industry, which is really full of ambition.But suddenly, like an express train derailed, Williams' reputation plummeted, and the drama critics who had once cheered for him no longer supported him. They raised their whips together and came to him.In the 1960s, every time Williams played on stage, the critics booed him, and his audience deserted him, and their applause went to the rising star Edward Albee (Edward Albee), Albee's "Spiritual Desire Spring Night" (Who Is Afraid of Virginia Woolf?) hit Broadway in 1962, and the sensational situation was not as good as "A Streetcar Named Desire" that year.Albee's play is bitter and bitter, and it exposes and ridicules the family and marriage system in the United States without mercy, and the audience thinks it is enjoyable.In fact, the social culture of the United States in the 1960s was undergoing tremendous changes, and audience values ​​and tastes were also changing. The disabled and lonely characters in Williams' works were crying out from the depths of their souls, and audiences in the 1960s felt that they couldn't bear it.Overnight, Williams was stared at and experienced the cruelty of the world.But Williams did not admit defeat. He still stubbornly adhered to his creative principles and refused to appeal to the public.When drama critics scolded him, he scolded him back, which of course offended many people.In 1969, when his "In the Bar of a Tokyo Hotel" was staged, an article in "Life" magazine simply announced the death of Williams' theatrical career.In the 1960s, Williams became more and more supported by alcohol and drugs, and finally had a nervous breakdown and was imprisoned in an insane asylum for three months.In the 1970s, like a phoenix on fire, Williams rose from the ashes of his life and soared up. Williams began to write one script after another, and his characters continued to cry out in isolation and pain— ——He has a play called (Outcry)——but their cries are rarely echoed, and Williams can no longer revive the greatness of the theater.Looking back on the past, Williams's later years were quite gloomy.However, Williams was not willing to be lonely. His theater career was no longer brilliant, so he appeared in public everywhere, accepted interviews and appeared on TV to do "shows", and he often spoke out.Probably he felt that this was not enough. In 1972, he published his autobiography, which was a naked "confession" with a bold style, which shocked the American literary and art circles, and of course there were laughter.But Williams has always done his own thing, acting like no one else, and he never hides his descriptions of human emotions. This is the touching part of his works.In his autobiography, it is not surprising that he has the courage to confess his inner feelings.

This "Confession" of Williams is written from the time when he was a young man who was in the world and became a powerful man in his prime, to when he was depressed and rebellious in his later years.The form of this autobiography is quite special, it is completely stream-of-consciousness-style free association, jumping back and forth in time, much like a trendy movie.The names of people and places are colorful and dizzying, but historical facts are not the focus of this book. In fact, Williams often misremembers date facts.The touching part of this autobiography lies in Williams' perseverance and devotion to his drama creation, as well as his hesitation, sinking, regret, and suffering between love and desire.Drama creation and the pursuit of love occupied his whole life, and the former was far more important than the latter, and the latter was only the fuel of the former.His good friend Erica Hill commented on Williams: "His life is in his works." This is knowledge.Only when we understand how serious Williams was about his creations can we forgive his dissolute career.Williams wrote a staggering number of works in his life: twenty-five plays, forty plays, two novels, sixty short stories, and more than a hundred poems.When he was drinking and taking drugs, he kept writing, and he didn't forget to write when he was chasing boys all over the street. He knew that his creativity was gradually declining, but he still mustered up the courage to write straight.He seems to live for writing every day.Williams' health has always been poor, and he was sick all over, but he lived to be seventy-two years old. It was his creation that supported his life.

The life of a playwright is of course in the theater. Williams devotes himself wholeheartedly to the performance of each script, from discussing the script with the director, casting, rehearsing, to the premiere, he participates in everything.Williams has worked with many top-notch directors, among whom he most admires is Jose Quintero besides Erica Hill.Quintello salvaged his "Summer Clouds" and directed his film "Mrs. Stone's Roman Spring"-a film that Williams admired most, and he despised most of his other films.Williams was able to get along with several great directors in harmony, which was unexpected, especially for Kazan, he was kind, mainly because the two of them understood and respected each other, and he scolded people who were not respected by him.Every time he performs, Williams must insist that he has the right to cast a role, and he will not budge on this point.Diana Barrymore (Diana Barrymore) is his good friend. She came from a Barrymore drama family and was also a famous American stage actress at that time; Vetoed it, he thought she was not the right type.Discouraged, Barrymore committed suicide a few days later.Williams was very sad, but he believed that a writer must protect his own work. His approach was obviously right. No matter how wonderful a script is, if the characters are wrong, it will definitely fail.Later, Geraldine Page played the princess, and she really shined.Williams is indeed meticulous about his plays.During the rehearsal, he often went to sit in town, and his script was revised and revised, and sometimes the actors felt very annoying.But he gets along well with actors, especially actresses, such as Italy's Ana Magni, Tallula Bankhead, and Maureen Stapleton. his buddy.He was very sweet to them and never praised them.They later found out that he had said the same thing to them all: "You are the greatest actress in my play!" Williams was cheering up his heroine.The closer the premiere date got, the more irritable Williams became, drinking more alcohol and taking more pills to get any sleep.There were several premieres, before the curtain ended, he fled New York and hid in a far place alone, because he could not face the audience; he so hoped that the audience would like and accept his plays, he Nor can he bear the cynicism of drama critics, he actually cares very much about drama critics' affirmation of his art. "In the Bar of the Tokyo Hotel" failed, and he simply flew to Tokyo, away from the United States.From script writing to stage performance, only the participants can experience the hardships and pains in the process, but the audience is ruthless, they can't see the sweat and tears in the background, and they don't care.Every performance is a severe test for Williams, and the blow of failure is so heavy and frustrating.The strange thing is that Williams knew the cruelty and ruthlessness of the theater career, but he never got tired of it. In the next two decades, despite repeated defeats, he still stood firm and supported to the end.As a playwright, Williams has courage.

Some writers’ lives and works do not necessarily have a great connection. If Arthur Miller wrote an autobiography, I would not be interested in reading it. At most, I would read his relationship with Marilyn Monroe. .But Williams’s personality and writing are inseparable. His works can be said to be his autobiography. If you don’t know Williams’ life, you will be at a loss in your appreciation of his works.Williams was born in Mississippi in 1911. His family was a typical declining family in the south, and his father's family was already very dilapidated.His father was a salesman in a leather shoe company, and his words and deeds were vulgar. He had no understanding of his sensitive and introverted genius son, and often laughed at him as a sissy and called him "Miss Nancy".Of course, the father and son did not get along well. Williams was caught by his father to work in a shoe factory halfway through his university studies in Michigan. Later, he went to the University of Iowa to graduate.I remember when I was studying in Iowa, the people there mentioned that Williams was a student of Iowa University, and they still felt very honorable.Williams' mother was also a typical southern lady. She had a glorious time when she was young, but later she only lived in memories. The obsessed and chattering mother Amanda in "The Glass Menagerie" is a portrayal of Williams' own mother, Lady Awina—one of the most successful characters in Williams' play.Aiwenna is a puritan through and through, and Williams often complains that his guilt about sex comes from his mother's indoctrination.Williams first tasted the forbidden fruit when he was a student at the University of Iowa with a hot girl. At the time, Williams was twenty-seven years old, and he was late for Americans.At the age of twenty-eight, Williams became gay. The male student in his room was extremely handsome. The two admired each other and often hugged each other at night. Williams "trembled like a fallen leaf", but he trembled all night. It's unbelievable that the two of them are still innocent.It can be seen that Williams in his early years was indeed introverted, shy and sexually repressed, in stark contrast to his later unruly.

At home, Williams and his sister Rose (Rose) have been close since childhood. In fact, Rose is the most important person in Williams' life. Care, showing the most human side of Williams.Many of his plays are about Rose or for Rose.Rose and Williams have similar temperaments and personalities: extremely shy and sensitive, nervous, easily hurt, and artistic.Rose knew her brother well and valued his artistic genius.The two siblings are emotionally dependent on each other for life.But Rose's fate was quite tragic. She suffered from schizophrenia in her early twenties. Her mother followed the doctor's advice and sent her to have her brain opened and a lobotomy performed.Rose never returned to normal and spent her life in a nursing home.This incident was a great blow to Williams, and he never forgave his mother. Lorna in "The Glass Menagerie" is Rose's incarnation: a girl who has been physically and mentally disabled.This is Williams' famous work, because of its strong autobiographical nature, Williams injects sincere and deep feelings, which is deeply moving.

Williams himself admitted that he was a student of Chekhov, and that "The Seagull" is the greatest modern play.Williams has indeed inherited the tradition of Chekhov's lyrical plays. The melancholy tone, desperate pathos, and nostalgia for the glory of the past can all be found in Williams' own plays.Williams once said that his play was an elegy for the decline of American Southern culture.Indeed, almost every Williams play can be said to be an elegy: mourning the past glory of the South, mourning the tragic fate of his sister Rose and his own joys and sorrows.Of course, the most wonderful of these dirges is still his masterpiece: "A Streetcar Named Desire". "A Streetcar Named Desire" is a milestone in the history of American drama, and Blanche Dubois is the most successful character created by Williams.Blanche lives in fantasy and the past. She married a young and beautiful poet when she was a girl. She adores her husband and loves him madly.One day she finds out that the poet is a homosexual, having sex with an older man. Her ideal of love is suddenly disillusioned, and her young husband commits suicide in shame.Filled with guilt, Bai Lanzhi began to exile herself, living a life of prostitution and prostitution, hoping to find redemption in love in other men, but her last chance was also destroyed by her beastly brother-in-law.In the end, Bai Lanzhi had a nervous breakdown and was sent to the madhouse.In Williams' mind, Blanche, a twilight beauty, can be said to represent the declining South of the United States.When the play was rehearsed in Rome, the great director Visconti said to Williams: Blanche is you.Visconti is quite insightful. In fact, Blanche is a portrait of Williams and his sister Rose.Blanche has Ruosi's nervousness, sensitivity and fragility, but she also has the nobility of a southern lady, while the schizophrenia of spirit and body she suffers from is Williams's. Her endless yearning for beauty and poetry, in the depravity of flesh Struggling to find redemption is entirely Williams' own experience.Williams poured out so much personal affection for Blanche, it's no wonder that Blanche's cry for help from the depths of her soul was so powerful.Vivien Leigh brought Blanche to life on stage and screen. She played so well that she really broke down and thought she was Blanche.I have seen many people play the role of Blanche, the last one is Faye Dunaway, her acting skills are outstanding, but Vivien Leigh's performance is too wonderful, she is a genius among geniuses, I can't accept anyone else except her Play Blanche.Several other characters in Williams's plays also have the shadow of Rose, such as Alma in "Summer Smoke"; even in his late works, Rose also appears again and again, and the tragedy of the two brothers and sisters in his novel is entirely his own. The story with Rose.In real life, Williams was unable to save his sister from tragedy, and presumably only in his play can he resurrect and immortalize his sister.Williams took care of Rose in every possible way. No matter how busy he was, he always managed to find time to visit Rose in a nursing home in New York, and took her out to dinner and theater. My sister also shares his glory.Although Rose doesn't necessarily understand the significance of Williams' award, she is always happy with her brother.Once Williams went to see Rose in a nursing home. Rose didn't know that her brother was already a well-known playwright at the time. She thought he was still a small worker in their father's shoe company, and she secretly slipped him ten dollars. Said: "Tom, you don't want to work in the shoe factory anymore, you go write your poems, and I will support you." Williams hid in the car alone, moved to tears.Williams took alcohol and drugs in his later years, became suspicious and violent, and finally made everyone betray him, and his relatives and friends kept him at a respectful distance. He probably thought that only Rose's love for him was eternal.

In Williams' life, there were countless men who came and went.Two types of men attracted him, and both were young.One is dancers, poets, painters, belonging to the spiritual, and the other is carnal, sailors, male prostitutes.In fact, Williams' attitude towards homosexuality is quite ambiguous and complicated.On the one hand, he fully accepted the fact that he was a homosexual. His good friend Carson McCullers (Carson McCullers)'s husband Li Si wanted to commit suicide. Williams asked him why. Li Si said: "Because I found out that I was gay. .” Williams laughed on the spot, he didn’t expect Li Si to really commit suicide later.He said: "Li Si, I will never commit suicide by jumping out of the window just because I am gay, unless someone forces me not to be gay!" For him, homosexuality represents a pursuit of beauty and youth, similar to Thomas Mann's novel " In Death in Venice, the old writer Ossenbach's pursuit of the beautiful boy Daqiu.Therefore, there are often beautiful boys in his plays: the poet in "A Streetcar Named Desire", the homeless man in "Ophias Goes to Hell", and Chris in "The Milk Truck No Longer Stops", they all represent An ideal, a hope, and the phantom of love that Williams has been chasing all his life.His first lover was Kip, a beautiful Canadian dancer. Kip died of brain cancer. Williams carried a photo of Kip with him for twenty years.But homosexuality also had a dark and terrifying side to Williams. In "Suddenly Last Summer" (Suddenly Last Summer), it is described that Shabaskin, a rich man, was swallowed alive by a group of wild children on a tropical island. Shabaskin is a homosexual who indulges in carnal desires. A ritual of cannibalism.Williams wandered in Los Angeles and New York's Greenwich Village before he made his fortune, and often went outside to seduce sailors. Once he bumped into a villain and knocked out two front teeth. Williams had a horrible experience.In the final analysis, Williams' attitude towards homosexuality is still affected by his basic division of spirit and body. He has been struggling between spiritual sublimation and carnal degradation all his life, and the characters in his plays are also floating between the poles of heaven and hell. torment.

The most important man in Williams' life was Frank Merlo. Williams nicknamed him Frankie. Frankie and Williams spent 14 years together, from 1948 to 1919 June 2, that was the most glorious period of Williams' career, and it was also the period of his emotional stability.Frankie is a native of Sicily, Italy. He has little education and once drove a truck, but he is very smart, sensitive, hardworking, and his literary and artistic accomplishments are all self-taught.Frankie is not particularly handsome, but quite handsome.He was a man of integrity and stoicism, with the self-respect and self-love of a Sicilian.Williams and Frankie got married in Cape Cod (Cape Cod) on the east coast of the United States, which is a place where gays in the United States often go on vacation. The two started out as a dewy marriage and made love in the sand.The following year, Williams met Frankie again on the streets of New York. He asked him why he didn't contact him. All over half the sky.He just admired Frankie's arrogance. Frankie and Williams were absolutely equal. What he loved was not Williams' name, but Williams' people.During the fourteen years that Frankie and Williams were together, Williams' daily life was taken care of by him. He was Williams' secretary, nanny, cook, and of course his lover.One day, Williams was talking with Jack Warner, the big boss of Warner Corporation, about making a movie. Frankie was also there. Mr. Si is asleep." Williams was delighted, he admired Frankie's spirit of not being afraid of the powerful.The two did have a sweet moment at first, when Williams wrote "The Rose Tattoo," one of his most upbeat romantic comedies: a widow with a broken heart who is inflamed by a truck driver.This hot love drama can reflect Williams' mood at that time. Of course, Frankie also drove a truck. "The Rose Tattoo" was later made into a movie, and Anna Melanie won an Academy Award. When the script of "The Rose Tattoo" was published, Williams wrote a dedication to Frankie: "To Frankie, thanks to Sicily." Frankie has always been loyal and meticulous to Williams, but Williams' friends agree that Williams is not good enough for Frankie, and his friends are all on Frankie's side, because Frankie's popularity is really good.Williams is generous, kind-hearted, but not good. He is willful, suspicious, and extremely insecure. When his career began to decline in the 1960s, his temperament became more moody due to excessive drinking and drug use. Get promiscuous.Once Williams was hanging out with three goblins during the day. When he came home, Frankie was cooking dinner. The kitchen door opened, and a plate of meatloaf flew out and threw Williams, followed by salad and bread. , Frankie rushed out of the door angrily, his self-esteem was greatly damaged, and Williams was so drunk that he actually had the face to grab the meatloaf that fell on the table and start chewing.This kind of "family dispute" intensified. Once, Williams brought a young painter home, and Frankie caught him again.Williams finally broke with Frankie and took the painter away from home. Frankie chased him out and asked Williams, "We have been together for fourteen years, and you didn't even shake my hand when you left like this? "Williams shook hands with Frankie and walked away.Not long after the two broke up, Williams went on vacation in North Africa, and the people around him changed to a very beautiful little poet, whom he called "Anqier".Williams was having a good time, when a friend called and told him that Frankie had lung cancer and was seriously ill.Williams immediately flew to New York and returned to Frankie's side.The most touching part of Williams' "Confessions" is the section where he took care of Frankie until his death.During the ten years when Williams became popular, everything was easy, and with Frankie by his side, he did not feel the value of Frankie, nor did he know how to cherish the relationship between the two of them. In the world, he suddenly panicked, like a child who was in a panic and didn't know where to go.Only then did he think of all the advantages of Frankie, and he also realized that he had always loved Frankie deeply.Williams was filled with remorse for a moment and couldn't help himself, but it was too late.During his lifetime, Frankie was Williams' emotional safe haven. After his death, Williams was like a ship that lost its rudder in the raging wind and waves, but it still couldn't reach the shore.Frankie's death happened at the same time as the whereabouts of Williams' career. In fact, the two are also quite related, because Frankie created a stable environment for Williams, allowing him to create with peace of mind.He was very dependent on Frankie. After Frankie was gone, Williams couldn't even take care of himself in daily life. He suffered from depression for seven years and finally had a mental breakdown.

When I first arrived in New York in 1963, the first thing I did was to watch "The Milk Truck No Longer Stop" on Broadway. The heroine was Hermione Baddeley. The late beauty regrets her whole life and performed vividly.It was Williams's first script after Frankie's death, and it fully reflected his inner feelings at that time.Williams identifies so deeply with his characters that their cries of pain are exhausting.Critics boycotted the play, and Williams never recovered.Truman Capote (Truman Capote) once said in an interview: "Williams' play is full of sensibility, without wisdom at all." Capote and Williams were friends at first, but they turned against each other later.Capo I has always been known for being harsh and mean, but his words are not unreasonable. When it comes to the depth of philosophical thought, Williams is indeed inferior to European avant-garde playwrights Beckett, Inesco, Brecht and others.But he wrote about some of the most basic human emotions: the pain of disillusionment in love, the loneliness inherent in life, and the remembrance of past glory.These feelings, exuded by Lorna, Blanche, and Alma on the stage, are indeed thunderous. Their pain is heart-pounding, but their loneliness is universal.In some of Williams' most successful plays, thought and feeling are one.In 1981 Williams performed his last major play, Something Cloudy, Something Clear, a memoir and completely autobiographical play in which his first lover, Chip, The ghosts of Frankie and actress Telula appeared one by one. These three people Williams had loved and died long ago. He had a confession full of regret and tenderness with each of them.It's a very mature and moving show, in which Williams is saying goodbye to his past and talking to death.Williams died in 1983, and his death was as lonely and bizarre as the ending of his characters.He was alone and frozen in a hotel, suffocating to death with a pill bottle cap stuck in his throat.During his lifetime, Williams enjoyed all the glory and wealth, and also experienced loneliness and pain. In fact, his life is the most wonderful script, and life is like a play.