14 - The Strangest Kind of Romance

Summary

Tennessee Williams's reputation as one of the greatest playwrights of the twentieth century seems secure. Now just over a dozen years after his death, his plays are frequently revived, he continues to provoke critical inquiry, and he is one of the few American dramatists still taught in undergraduate literature surveys. Considering his prolific output, however, he is renowned for only a handful of plays, all dating from the first fifteen years of a forty-year professional career. Indeed, one might surmise that Tennessee Williams's critical reputation during his life soared, then plummeted, and that his later works were produced and tolerated only because of the early masterpieces; moreover, that his stature is entirely dependent upon a few well-wrought dramas: The Glass Menagerie, A Streetcar Named Desire, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, The Night of the Iguana. It is no coincidence that these plays enjoyed long, successful New York runs, for critical acclaim and commercial appeal usually coexisted on the Broadway of Williams's time.