The Metatheater of Tennessee Williams

Tennessee Williams' characters set the stage for their own dramas. Blanche DuBois ( A Streetcar Named Desire ), arrived at her sister's apartment with an entire trunk of costumes and props. Amanda Wingfield ( The Glass Menagerie ) directed her son on how to eat and tries to make her daughter act like a Southern Belle. This book argues for the persistence of one metatheatrical strategy running throughout Williams' entire oeuvre: each play stages the process through which it came into being--and t