Tennessee Williams is in Hell

That's according to actor Nambi E. Kelley, writing on the Steppenwolf Blog this afternoon. Kelley is playing Laura in the upcoming Steppenwolf for Young Adults production of The Glass Menagerie.

If Tennessee Williams is in heaven (which I doubt knowing the troubled life he led), mayhap he’ll hear the gentle strumming of his words, from our lips to his ears. And if he is in the other place (which is more likely knowing the troubled life he led) mayhap the music will be so clear he won’t be able to escape it, even there.

A generous reading would presume that "the troubled life he led" refers to, say, Tennessee's problems with drugs and alcohol, and isn't meant as a veiled reference to his homosexuality. No matter what prompts Kelley's suspicions about the afterlife of one of our greatest playwrights, it's surprising to see a theater artist publicly announce such a thing. (One wonders if she has similar thoughts on the whereabouts of O'Neill and Miller. Perhaps she has a list.) It's even more surprising to see Steppenwolf publish such a thing.

Comments

[Stephen]

Wow. Just... wow.

[Ed]

Yowza. What's the internet equivalent of speechless? Anyway, whatever the term is, that's what that comment of hers temporarily left me (though not for long, obviously). On the other hand, would we rather she be dishonest about her feelings? Bully for her for being outspoken about how she feels. I'll probably skip this production of the Glass Menagerie though- I kind of prefer to see plays in which the actors are respecting the author, which is kind of precluded when one of the leads is of the opinion that said author is burning in hell.

I feel like I have to be misunderstanding her. Maybe she was trying to come up with something poetic for the end of her blog post, but it kinda got away from her a bit? You know, she meant to cut it short at the "gentle strumming" part, but got caught up in an actor's instinctive need to explore opposites and antitheses?

When I'm performing a dead playwright's work, I tend not to speculate on their spiritual state. I get nervous enough without imagining the ghost of Tennessee hanging on my every word, whether wreathed in glory or wreathed in flames. It sounds like something a nun in my old Catholic school would have taught us if she directed plays- "every time you forget a line in this classical monologue, the devil will make the fires of Will Shakespeare's torment burn that much hotter...think hard about that, then take it from the top." Who needs the pressure?

Hey everybody- game time! Who else who's passed away in the theatre is devil-food, and why?

The rules:
1) The "crimes" committed can't have anything to with any of the 'traditional' sins of Judeo-Christian religion. The sillier, the better.

2) Nobody who's still alive, obviously. They have to already be deep in hellfire.

3) Nobody who's dead, either- that's just plain disrespectful, and it's the kind of thing that leads to your being mocked on the internet.

4) Don't actually play this game. I'm not serious.

[owens]

our country is goin' down the toilet.

[Bilal]

I've been trying very hard to give Kelley the benefit of the doubt here, and perhaps the benefit of her youth, but I can't get away from the arrogant nature of such a comment, especially as regards to someone whose work she so seems to admire.

So maybe I'll just choose to believe that after a life of creating some of the most beloved art the world has ever seen, and yet also living a life tormented by demons of both his own and his environment's devising, that a kind and loving god didn't see fit to put Tennessee Williams into a new hell after he left his personal earthly one.

[Paul Rekk]

Y'all talk like hell is such a bad thing...

[Jack]

I wonder how this production will deal with GM's rampant gay subtext...

[Martin Esslin]

I think the role of Laura has gone to her head. I'm still giggling over the use of "mayhap" TWICE in her comment!