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Thomas Lanier “Tennessee” Williams was born on March 26, 1911 in Columbus, Missouri to Edwina Dakin and Cornelius Coffin (“C.C.”) Williams. He was the second of three children, with an older sister Rose and a younger brother Dakin. C.C. was an alcoholic who made his living as a traveling shoe salesman spending much time on the road. Edwina longed for her days as a belle growing up in the South and when C.C. was in residence, husband and wife often had fights that the children longed to escape from. As Rose grew older it became apparent that she suffered from mental illness and had to be institutionalized.
It was from this background that Tennessee Williams emerged to become one of the predominant American playwrights of the mid-20th century. Williams first started writing poetry and short stories, which met with modest success. His first attempts at writing plays were not well received, however. He struggled and almost gave up until he decided to follow the adage “write what you know”. In 1944 Williams introduced the Wingfield Family to the world, thinly veiling his own upbringing with the main character Tom representing himself, Amanda his histrionic mother and Laura his mentally fragile sister. Works that followed such as A Street Car Named Desire, Summer and Smoke, and Cat On A Hot Tin Roof continued to display common themes first set forth in The Glass Menagerie: domineering Southern matriarchs, emotionally absent fathers, child-like women lost in worlds of their own making, as well as the never ending struggle of the separation between illusion and reality. So, sit back and, in memory, let us “take you back to an alley in St. Louis.” Kathleen Atwood, Director |
