Hey, TWTC Family!
The last year has been a whirlwind at TWTC, and we've fallen behind on blogging. We're growing so fast and producing theatre is no small feat. That's why we've recruited help to be sure we're still turning out quality content! Please join TWTC in welcoming Liz Bruce as a contributing blogger!
Why Tennessee Means NOLA To Me
by Liz Bruce, M.A., M.F.A., Contributor
I wasn’t born in New Orleans, but the city began bewitching me at an early age. That bewitchment, I owe primarily to Tennessee Williams. I remember it clearly: assigned to read The Glass Menagerie for English class, I found myself captivated by the visceral, vibrant words that Williams wrote. I quickly checked out a Williams anthology from the school library and was soon swept away by this far off land where such lovely, dark, and tumultuous things happened.Williams made sure I knew that New Orleans was special.
Years later, when my now-husband gave me my first physical introduction to his native New Orleans, I felt some trepidation. Being from New York, I was raised with the snobbish attitude that New York City is the center of the entire world; no other city could possibly compare. What if New Orleans failed to live up to the myth Williams had given me?
I needn’t have worried. It was a warm day when I drove into New Orleans, and as my AC was broken, I had the windows rolled down. A favorite song of mine was playing on the radio as I pulled up to an intersection, and I was dancing to it, blissfully unaware, caught up in my groovy tunes. From the next car over, a peal of laughter rang out, and I turned, ready to be embarrassed, but the driver simply cheered and started dancing along with me. There we were, strangers stopped at a red light, having a dance party, sharing in a moment of unadulterated joy. Just like that, I was hooked. This was my city.
I moved to New Orleans about six months ago. As a newly minted and proud transplant, standing on the brink of my first Mardi Gras season, a celebration enhanced by the advent of the tricentennial, I’m finding New Orleans a home I didn’t know I was looking for, and I sometimes can’t fathom why anyone would choose to be anywhere else. In this, I feel a particular kinship with that other transplant, Tennessee Williams himself, who not only called New Orleans his spiritual home, but who also famously said, “America has only three cities: New York, San Francisco, and New Orleans. Everywhere else is Cleveland.”
Williams’s writings communicated New Orleans to a broader world in a way that continues to reverberate from the heart of the city outward. His homes and haunts occupy many corners of the city that can still be discovered today. The madness of a boarding house landlady in Vieux Carré comes from Williams’s own demented landlady. The famous Desire streetcar route ran right past William’s St. Peter Street apartment, and Williams’s favorite bistro, Galatoire’s, makes a brief appearance in Streetcar, with Stanley declaring vehemently that he isn’t going there for supper.
But Williams’ writing allowed outsiders to know the streets in a way that moved beyond its geographical points of interest. Williams’s descriptions of New Orleans, often found in his detailed stage directions, invite audiences to feel, to smell, to hear: In the opening of A Streetcar Named Desire, for example, Williams describes the “raffish charm” of the poorer neighborhood, the lyricism of the sky, the faint smell of bananas and coffee, and the ever-present sound of, “a tinny piano being played with the infatuated fluency of brown fingers. This ‘Blue Piano’ expresses the spirit of the life which goes on here.”
Williams moved to New Orleans when he was 28, and there found an escape from a troubled family life and a puritanical past. In New Orleans, Williams found safety and freedom as he had never experienced before; he found a sacred slice of bohemia where artists, adventurers, and lovers could live unfettered. Williams referred to New Orleans as a “vagabond's paradise” and remarked, “In New York, eccentricities, authentic ones, are ignored. In Los Angeles, they’re arrested. Only in New Orleans are they permitted to develop their eccentricities into art.” New Orleans was a place where William’s creativity and individuality would not only be nurtured, but celebrated.
Certainly, a defining characteristic of this safe haven was New Orlean’s position as a singular bastion of sensual fantasy and permissiveness, set apart from the rest of the world. It was in New Orleans that Williams selected homosexuality as his, “sexual way of life.” Williams himself even told the story of losing his virginity to a sailor who climbed up his fire escape from a party below. New Orleans spoke in daylight what was too often whispered in darkness, and that suited Williams just fine.
Williams’ words painted a picture of New Orleans that was at once cosmopolitan and decaying, a city of glorious contradictions and tangles of difference. New Orleans was a place where the senses were titillated, awakened, and sometimes even assaulted. It was an intermingling of races, sexualities, celebrations, and sometimes despair. For Williams, this churning mess of spirit and flesh was what he needed.
Spirit and flesh continue their dance in the streets of New Orleans today, something that I like to think would make Tennessee Williams proud. His legacy continues to spread the good news of this strange, wonderful city to the wider world, and New Orleans in turn does its part to keep his legacy alive, through productions of his plays and celebrations of his life and work.
In all that Williams has said of New Orleans, my favorite is a simple sentence from his journal: “Here surely is the place I was made for if any place on this funny old world.”
I don’t think anyone could have said it better.
Hey, Gang! It's Augustin again. Don't forget to grab your tickets to One Arm by Moises Kaufman, adapted from the short story and screenplay by Tennessee Williams, opening March 22 in collaboration with the Tennessee Williams/New Orleans Literary Festival! On Saturday, March 24, there'll be a conversation with Mr. Kaufman facilitated by me and the New Orleans Advocate's Bradford Rhines! Just click the image below and reserve your seats now!
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| Tickets Now On Sale! |
