Tennessee Williams and Italy

Tennessee Williams and Italy PDF Author: Alessandro Clericuzio
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319319272
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 231

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Book Description
This book reveals for the first time the import of a huge network of connections between Tennessee Williams and the country closest to his heart, Italy. America's most thought-provoking playwright loved Italy more than any other country outside the US and was deeply influenced by its culture for most of his life. Anna Magnani's film roles in the 1940s, Italian Neo-realist cinema, the theatre of Eduardo De Filippo, as well as the actual experience of Italian life and culture during his long stays in the country were some of the elements shaping his literary output. Through his lover Frank Merlo, he also had first-hand knowledge of Italian-American life in Brooklyn. Tracing the establishment of his reputation with the Italian intelligentsia, as well as with theatre practitioners and with generations of audiences, the book also tells the story of a momentous collaboration in the theatre, between Williams and Luchino Visconti, who had to defy the unceasing control Italian censorship exerted on Williams for decades.

Tennessee Williams and Italy

Tennessee Williams and Italy PDF Author: Alessandro Clericuzio
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319319272
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 231

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book reveals for the first time the import of a huge network of connections between Tennessee Williams and the country closest to his heart, Italy. America's most thought-provoking playwright loved Italy more than any other country outside the US and was deeply influenced by its culture for most of his life. Anna Magnani's film roles in the 1940s, Italian Neo-realist cinema, the theatre of Eduardo De Filippo, as well as the actual experience of Italian life and culture during his long stays in the country were some of the elements shaping his literary output. Through his lover Frank Merlo, he also had first-hand knowledge of Italian-American life in Brooklyn. Tracing the establishment of his reputation with the Italian intelligentsia, as well as with theatre practitioners and with generations of audiences, the book also tells the story of a momentous collaboration in the theatre, between Williams and Luchino Visconti, who had to defy the unceasing control Italian censorship exerted on Williams for decades.

Leading Men

Leading Men PDF Author: Christopher Castellani
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0525559078
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 370

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Book Description
"Blazing . . . casts a spell right from the start." --Dwight Garner, The New York Times "A timeless and heartbreaking love story." --Celeste Ng, author of Little Fires Everywhere "An extraordinary book." --Lauren Groff, author of Florida Illuminating one of the great love stories of the twentieth century - Tennessee Williams and his longtime partner Frank Merlo - Leading Men is a glittering novel of desire and ambition, set against the glamorous literary circles of 1950s Italy In July of 1953, at a glittering party thrown by Truman Capote in Portofino, Italy, Tennessee Williams and his longtime lover Frank Merlo meet Anja Blomgren, a mysteriously taciturn young Swedish beauty and aspiring actress. Their encounter will go on to alter all of their lives. Ten years later, Frank revisits the tempestuous events of that fateful summer from his deathbed in Manhattan, where he waits anxiously for Tennessee to visit him one final time. Anja, now legendary film icon Anja Bloom, lives as a recluse in the present-day U.S., until a young man connected to the events of 1953 lures her reluctantly back into the spotlight after he discovers she possesses the only surviving copy of Williams's final play. What keeps two people together and what breaks them apart? Can we save someone else if we can't save ourselves? Like The Master and The Hours, Leading Men seamlessly weaves fact and fiction to navigate the tensions between public figures and their private lives. In an ultimately heartbreaking story about the burdens of fame and the complex negotiations of life in the shadows of greatness, Castellani creates an unforgettable leading lady in Anja Bloom and reveals the hidden machinery of one of the great literary love stories of the twentieth-century.

The Rose Tattoo

The Rose Tattoo PDF Author: Tennessee Williams
Publisher: New Directions Publishing
ISBN: 0811220796
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 165

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Book Description
Published as a trade paperback for the first time, with a new introduction by the acclaimed playwright John Patrick Shanley (Doubt) and the one-act on which The Rose Tattoo was based. The Rose Tattoo is larger than life—a fable, a Greek tragedy, a comedy, a melodrama—it is a love letter from Tennessee Williams to anyone who has ever been in love or ever will be. Professional widow and dressmaker Serafina delle Rosa has withdrawn from the world, locking away her heart and her sixteen-year-old daughter Rosa. Then one day a man with the sexy body of her late Sicilian husband and the face of a village idiot, Mangiacavallo (Italian for “eat a horse”), stumbles into her life and clumsily unlocks Serafina’s fiery anger, sense of betrayal, pride, wit, passion, and eventually her capacious love. The original production of The Rose Tattoo won Tony Awards for best play and for the stars, Eli Wallach and Maureen Stapleton. Anna Magnani received the Academy Award as Best Actress for the 1955 film version. This edition of The Rose Tattoo has an Introduction by playwright John Patrick Shanley, the author’s original foreword, the one-act The Dog Enchanted by the Divine View that was the germ for the play, and an essay by noted Tennessee Williams scholar Jack Barbera.

The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone

The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone PDF Author: Tennessee Williams
Publisher: New Directions Publishing
ISBN: 081122046X
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 98

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Book Description
Tennessee Williams's first novel The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone is vintage Tennessee Williams. Published in 1950, his first novel was acclaimed by Gore Vidal as "splendidly written, precise, short, complete, and fine." It is the story of a wealthy, fiftyish American widow recently a famous stage beauty, but now "drifting." The novel opens soon after her husband's death and her retirement from the theatre, as Mrs. Stone tries to adjust to her aimless new life in Rome. She is adjusting, too, to aging. ("The knowledge that her beauty was lost had come upon her recently and it was still occasionally forgotten.") With poignant wit and his own particular brand of relish, Williams charts her drift into an affair with a cruel young gigolo: "As compelling, as fascinating, and as technically skillful as his play" (Publishers Weekly).

Italy in Mind

Italy in Mind PDF Author: Alice Leccese Powers
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307486478
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 436

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Book Description
Comprised of short stories, novel excerpts, essays, poetry journals and letters, this work will delight anyone who loves Italy or great travel writing. Pieces include Barbara Grizzuti Harrison marveling at baroque Sicilian confections, Mary McCarthy celebrating Venice's threadbare dignity, and Henry James's Isabel Archer succumbing to the treacherous antiquities of Florence. From the Trade Paperback edition.

A House in Sicily

A House in Sicily PDF Author: Daphne Phelps
Publisher: Virago Press
ISBN: 9781860496486
Category : Sicily (Italy)
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
Near Mount Etna in Sicily lies Casa Cuseni, a beautiful house built in golden stone - and the home which Daphne Phelps was astonished to find she had inherited in 1947. At the age of 34, war-weary from working as a psychiatric social worker, with barely any Italian, and precious little money, she plunged into a fascinating Sicilian world. Every imaginable problem had to be overcome, not only financial difficulties but local authorities and a house staff who initially felt no loyalty to the new Signorina but who gradually accepted her as a respected member of their small community. To help make ends meet, for many years she ran Casa Cuseni as a pensione and to her doors came Roald Dahl, Tennessee Williams, Bertrand Russell and Henry Faulkner. But just as important to her life and her story are the Sicilians with whom she shared the love and care of Casa Cuseni: Don Ciccio the local mafia leader, Vincenzio, general manservant who recited while he served the meals, Beppe, a Don Juan who scented his eyebrows and his moustache to attract the local girls; and above all the steadfast cook and housekeeper who lives with Daphne still and to whom this book is dedicated.

The Glass Menagerie

The Glass Menagerie PDF Author: Tennessee Willams
Publisher: The Anglo Egyptian Bookshop
ISBN:
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description


Tennessee Williams in Sweden and France, 1945–1965

Tennessee Williams in Sweden and France, 1945–1965 PDF Author: Dirk Gindt
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 135002208X
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 273

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Book Description
The immediate post-war period marks a pivotal moment in the internationalization of American theatre when Tennessee Williams' plays became some of Broadway's most critically acclaimed and financially lucrative exports. Dirk Gindt offers a detailed study of the production and reception of Williams' work on Swedish and French stages at the height of his popularity between 1945 and 1965. Analysing the national openings of seminal plays, including The Glass Menagerie, A Streetcar Named Desire, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Orpheus Descending and Suddenly Last Summer, Gindt provides rich and nuanced insights into Williams' transnational impact. In the process, he charts a network of fascinating and influential directors, actors, designers, producers and critics, all of whom left distinctive marks on mid-twentieth-century European theatre and culture. Gindt further demonstrates how Williams' work foregrounded cultural apprehensions, racial fantasies and sexual anxieties, which resulted in heated debates in the critical and popular media.

A Streetcar Named Desire

A Streetcar Named Desire PDF Author: Tennessee Williams
Publisher: Dramatists Play Service Inc
ISBN: 9780822210894
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 118

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Book Description
THE STORY: The play reveals to the very depths the character of Blanche du Bois, a woman whose life has been undermined by her romantic illusions, which lead her to reject--so far as possible--the realities of life with which she is faced and which s

Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh

Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh PDF Author: John Lahr
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393247120
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 452

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Book Description
National Book Critics Circle Award Winner: Biography Category National Book Award Finalist 2015 Winner of the Sheridan Morley Prize for Theatre Biography American Academy of Arts and Letters’ Harold D. Vursell Memorial Award A Chicago Tribune 'Best Books of 2014' USA Today: 10 Books We Loved Reading Washington Post, 10 Best Books of 2014 The definitive biography of America's greatest playwright from the celebrated drama critic of The New Yorker. John Lahr has produced a theater biography like no other. Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh gives intimate access to the mind of one of the most brilliant dramatists of his century, whose plays reshaped the American theater and the nation's sense of itself. This astute, deeply researched biography sheds a light on Tennessee Williams's warring family, his guilt, his creative triumphs and failures, his sexuality and numerous affairs, his misreported death, even the shenanigans surrounding his estate. With vivid cameos of the formative influences in Williams's life—his fierce, belittling father Cornelius; his puritanical, domineering mother Edwina; his demented sister Rose, who was lobotomized at the age of thirty-three; his beloved grandfather, the Reverend Walter Dakin—Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh is as much a biography of the man who created A Streetcar Named Desire, The Glass Menagerie, and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof as it is a trenchant exploration of Williams’s plays and the tortured process of bringing them to stage and screen. The portrait of Williams himself is unforgettable: a virgin until he was twenty-six, he had serial homosexual affairs thereafter as well as long-time, bruising relationships with Pancho Gonzalez and Frank Merlo. With compassion and verve, Lahr explores how Williams's relationships informed his work and how the resulting success brought turmoil to his personal life. Lahr captures not just Williams’s tempestuous public persona but also his backstage life, where his agent Audrey Wood and the director Elia Kazan play major roles, and Marlon Brando, Anna Magnani, Bette Davis, Maureen Stapleton, Diana Barrymore, and Tallulah Bankhead have scintillating walk-on parts. This is a biography of the highest order: a book about the major American playwright of his time written by the major American drama critic of his time.