1)​ Tennessee Williams was born in Columbus, Mississippi under the name Thomas Lanier

Williams in 1911. He was primarily raised by his mother, as his father traveled for sales

through the majority of his childhood. In his boyhood Williams would tell stories of

frights and drama orally, but when it came time to come to school he went into the field

of journalism for writing. According to several sources Williams attended the University

of Missouri in St. Louis primarily to follow his high school sweetheart. When their

romance ended he was stricken with depression and dropped out of school, his family

then sent him to Memphis, TN to regain his bearings. It was here where he would be

introduced to a local theater group. His interests in poetry and storytelling were now

adapted to the theatrical model for the first time. He would take this new form with him

back to St. Louis where he would mingle with various students of Washington University,

one of these students would introduce him to the poet Hart Crane, an inspiration present

through many of Williams' works. Crane is quoted in the Epigraph of Streetcar Named

Desire for instance. In 1937 Williams would return to school at the University of Iowa.

His tenure here is significant as it was the first era in which Williams wrote various plays

for production, all produced within the university. Upon his graduation, he moved to New

Orleans (Setting for “Death of Queens”) where he would write various short stories that

were converted into plays. It was also in New Orleans that he would adopt the name

Tennessee, after his fathers origin, in order to separate himself from his earlier career.

Under this new moniker Williams would face his first major successes. One of which was

his screenplay turned play The Glass Menagerie, which would open on broadway in 1945

to great acclaim permanently cementing Williams as a notable writer for the stage. This

status was cemented in his following play Streetcar Named Desire in 1948 for which he
 was awarded his first Pulitzer Prize. The second half of the 20th century saw Williams

continuously writing dozens of plays. Some of which were met with great success such as

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof others were received more critically such as Summer and Smoke.

Through the end of his life Williams would maintain his residencies in Key West and

New York, notably keeping an apartment in the French quarter of New Orleans.

2)​ Due to Williams’ massive repertoire I want to delve into recurring themes found across

his first major hits Glass Menagerie and Streetcar Named Desire. Both shows have a

large scope with several characters, particularly in the case of “Street Car”. These larger

casts are normally employed for two main reasons. One, to provide a spectrum of

character statuses and two, to create romantic entanglements. When I say a spectrum of

statuses I am referring to Williams’ interests with vulnerability and how it interacts with

power. In Glass Menagerie Laura is the story’s main source of vulnerability. This is

exemplified through her shyness, her inability to finish school, and desire for Jim.

Whereas Jim and Amanda are the powers of the story who’s influence constantly forces

Laura through her storyline. In “Streetcar” Blanche and, to a less significant extent, Stella

are the characters of vulnerability. Forsaken from their inheritance and, in Blanche's case,

widowed and exiled, the women of streetcar are incredibly susceptible to power

structures outside of their interests. This is primarily exemplified through the character of

Stanley, who physically and sexually abuses these women knowing that they both have

nowhere else to go. This story hammers home the theme of vulnerability through

Blanche’s line surrounding relying on strangers to the kind benefactor. Other notable

characteristics of these plays include settings of Williams’ past(New Orleans and St.

Louis), references to Williams’ own life(The poet Tom working in a soul-sucking clerical
job) , and homosexuality and death(Blanche's first husband). When holding these themes

up to “Death of Queens” several notable parallels are present. First, vulnerability is

essential to the story of Candy and Karl. Candy a gay man who exemplifies

gender-queerness in the late forties, is certainly a subject of societal vulnerability. Karl

constantly attempts to put Candy in this box of vulnerability by reminding her of his

objections to queerness, but Candy, much like Blanche, tries to deny this oppression

through wit. It is only when Karl expresses his power through brute physical strength that

Candy is truly vulnerable, and this shift is the climax of the piece. Additionally, this play

takes place in the French quarter of New Orleans site to Williams artistic conception of

himself and the location of one of his permanent addresses. The stories that he writes in

the region exemplify a unique world of diversity and modernity that “old fashioned”

characters tend to resist. Karl, in this case, finds his resistance to the local existence of

open queerness to be most frustrating. Finally, a small but notable parallel is Williams

tendency to connect homosexuality and tragedy. Williams, a queer man, discusses

homosexuality as a fragile aspect of human life that has ruminations of tragedy when

destroyed in both “Streetcar” and “Death of Queens”. In streetcar the suicice of Blanche's

first husband after he is discovered and chastised for his sexuality directly leads to her

exile. As his loss causes her to spiral into confusion and intimate desperation. Even

though queerness led to the dissolution of her marriage it was the destruction of

queerness that caused her to unravel. In “Death of Queens” this theme is the point. In my

read every character in the play exists on the spectrum of queerness, but the tragedy of

the play lays on the crux of interior hatred of this fact. When this hatred manifests itself

as violence the beauty of Queerness is destroyed and the final scene is spent
 contemplating what to do in its absence. Is it worth trying to rebuild if it will perpetually

face destruction? This connection between queerness and tragedy likely ties into

Williams’ own dissatisfaction with being gay.

3)​ I found a letter of correspondence between Williams and notable director Elia Kazan in

which Williams defends the merits of his piece. He writes, “I remember you asked me

what should an audience feel for Blanche. Certainly pity. It is a tragedy with the

classic aim of producing a katharsis of pity and terror, and in order to do that

Blanche must finally have the understanding and compassion of the audience.

This without creating a black-dyed villain in Stanley. It is a thing

(misunderstanding) not a person (Stanley) that destroys her in the end. In the

end you should feel – “If only they all had known about each other!” – But there

was always the paper lantern or the naked bulb!…”

What I find most interesting about this letter is its intersection with Williams' theme of

vulnerability in his plays. His tragedies do not focus on a scheming villain, but a set of

circumstances that allow those in power to abuse those without its.

Another notable writing surrounding Williams more famous work is the orginal times review of

Glass Menagerie written on April 9, 1945. One line of note is, “The Glass Menagerie never

overworks its material, astutely unfolds most of its human little story in revealing little scenes. It

is the more touching, too, for not being cheaply sentimental”

This quote stands out to me as it captures a virtue that attracted me to Williams style from the

jump. His dialogue is never overly casual or sentimental, but a collection of words designed to

reveal the characters. My hope is to underline this quality in my interpretation as the character of
candy is to be played with deep authenticity, but lives in a world of detailed monologues of

business, art, and relationships. She does not explain how she feels, but expresses what she wants

to the utmost detail.

4)​ Tennessee Williams has no notable auxiliary writings for the death of queens, only a note

stored with the play in the UCLA special collections written on hotel stationary “A play

in two scenes. Complete, unproduced, unpublished. A tragi-come-dy concerning a

transvestite's adoration for a rough merchant-seaman in the Vieux Carré of New Orleans.

Written in Havana shortly before the Castro regime: also lost and recovered in a Miami

storage house. About 31 pages, a rough first draft, in author's roing with author's

hand-written corrections, Etc. - Requires revisions: production rights reserved by author”

This quote is dramaturgically notable, because it can help date the play. Based on the hotel seal

on the stationary he wrote the original draft of this play during a stay in Cuba in 1957. However,

certain pieces of stationary within the script work in conjugation with the “lost and recovered in

a Miami storage house” note to suggest that the play was being tinkered with up until 1970.

Making what Williams calls a “rough draft” more of a collection of rough drafts. This is further

cemented by the editorial process for the modern script, as much of the work revolved around

removing redundancies between different versions of the script. Williams had been tinkering

with this play behind the scenes for over a decade, making tweaks to character action and even

names. Yet, after all that time he decided to donate the manuscript and keep the show from the

light of day.

5)​ Due to its status as a Tennessee Williams one act this play is performed semi-regularly. It

played for the first time pre-publication in 2004 for in a highly regarded production at the

Kennedy Center under the direction of Michael Kahn. The following year saw the
 publication of Mister Paradise and other one act plays, which contained the cutting from

the Kahn verision. I was able to find a few reviews surrounding the production of “Death

of Queens” during the Tennessee Project. A producing initiviate in which several lesser

known Tennessee Williams one acts were performed. The Mooney on Theatre (a now

defunct theater reviewing forum) review praises the piece as impressively ahead of its

time regarding its usage of queerness and gender. It also ties the piece to “Streetcar”

drawing lines between Candy and Blanche and Stanley and Karl. It was an overwhelming

positivity review uplifting the actors truthful performances and the plays brutally honest

script. A more recent review for the show's production at King’s Head Theater in 2018 by

the spy in the stalls blog highlights similar qualities. These productions, and their public

reaction are very much a product of their times of production and shows the recurring

draw toward the plays central character.

6)​ Throughout my research I pretty much only found reviews that praised the play for its

central performance and well written text. The most negative review that I could find is

from an AI overview which claims that some critics found the show sensationalistic and

the characters one dimensional. However, when looking into the reviews cited it actually

misread two positive reviews and combined them with rhetoric in a news article

surrounding the death of Queen Elizabeth II. While this is not to say the play is perfect,

and I am sure that it has been done poorly before. This trend is representative of the fact

that the play contains gripping authenticity right out of the box. When actors and

directors respect the piece as such, they tend to find success.