Tennessee Williams Spotlight Pass
Sat
13
Sat 13 Dec 1:00 PM
Arc Cinema
Allocated Seating
December
One of America’s most acclaimed playwrights, Tennessee Williams was born Thomas Lanier Williams in Columbus, Mississippi, in 1911. He once said of his parents’ relationship, ‘it was just the wrong marriage,’ and the subject matter of his plays reveals a close observation of marital conflict. His overbearing father became the model for Big Daddy in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. At the same time, the story of his sister, who was given a lobotomy to treat psychiatric issues, emerges in Suddenly, Last Summer.
Williams left home at 28 to live in New Orleans, where he changed his name to his college nickname, ‘Tennessee.’ His play The Glass Menagerie opened on Broadway in 1945 to wide acclaim, followed by A Streetcar Named Desire in 1947, which won the Drama Critics’ Award and the Pulitzer Prize. In 1970, he won the same two awards again for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.
His plays were often adapted into films, drawing Hollywood heavyweights including Marlon Brando, Elizabeth Taylor, Paul Newman, Richard Burton, Vivien Leigh, Katharine Hepburn, Ava Gardner and Montgomery Clift.
Williams’ work evokes the tension and poignancy of an American South in decline. His characters are trapped within rigid societal expectations and use illusion and fantasy to help them repress reality. As a gay man, he wrote frankly about sexuality, presenting both gay and female sexuality on the American stage for the first time. Williams died in 1983, at the age of 71.
Pass includes:
Williams left home at 28 to live in New Orleans, where he changed his name to his college nickname, ‘Tennessee.’ His play The Glass Menagerie opened on Broadway in 1945 to wide acclaim, followed by A Streetcar Named Desire in 1947, which won the Drama Critics’ Award and the Pulitzer Prize. In 1970, he won the same two awards again for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.
His plays were often adapted into films, drawing Hollywood heavyweights including Marlon Brando, Elizabeth Taylor, Paul Newman, Richard Burton, Vivien Leigh, Katharine Hepburn, Ava Gardner and Montgomery Clift.
Williams’ work evokes the tension and poignancy of an American South in decline. His characters are trapped within rigid societal expectations and use illusion and fantasy to help them repress reality. As a gay man, he wrote frankly about sexuality, presenting both gay and female sexuality on the American stage for the first time. Williams died in 1983, at the age of 71.
Pass includes:
- Suddenly, Last Summer - SAT 13 DEC | 1 PM | M | 114 mins
- Cat On a Hot Tin Roof - SAT 10 JAN | 8 PM | PG | 108 mins
- A Streetcar Named Desire - FRI 30 JAN | 8 PM | M | 122 mins
- The Night of the Iguana - SAT 21 FEB | 7 PM | PG | 125 mins
December