AUTHOR: Tennessee Williams
STARTED: July 8, 2015
FINISHED: July 17, 2015
PAGES: 173
GENRE: Drama
FIRST SENTENCE: [From the Notes for the Designer] The set is the bed-sitting-room of a plantation home in the Mississippi Delta.
SUMMARY: [From BN] In a plantation house, a family celebrates the sixty-fifth birthday of Big Daddy, as they sentimentally dub him. The mood is somber, despite the festivities, because a number of evils poison the gaiety: greed, sins of the past and desperate, clawing hopes for the future spar with one another as the knowledge that Big Daddy is dying slowly makes the rounds. Maggie, Big Daddy's daughter-in-law, wants to give him the news that she's finally become pregnant by Big Daddy's favorite son, Brick, but Brick won't cooperate in Maggie's plans and prefers to stay in a mild alcoholic haze the entire length of his visit. Maggie has her own interests at heart in wanting to become pregnant, of course, but she also wants to make amends to Brick for an error in judgment that nearly cost her her marriage. Swarming around Maggie and Brick are their intrusive, conniving relatives, all eager to see Maggie put in her place and Brick tumbled from his position of most-beloved son. By evening's end, Maggie's ingenuity, fortitude and passion will set things right, and Brick's love for his father, never before expressed, will retrieve him from his path of destruction and return him, helplessly, to Maggie's loving arms.
THOUGHTS: This is a play - it should not have taken me almost 2 weeks to read. I think the reason it took me so long was that I didn't much care for the story or the characters. Who knew a Pulitzer doesn't indicate immediate enjoyment? I would write a longer review, but this just didn't have any impact on me. I didn't love it, I didn't hate it. It was just there. Perhaps it's better in performance. I might give the Liz Taylor movie a spin to see if that changes my perception.
RATING: 5/10 [Meh]
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