Dragon Country

by Tennessee Williams

"First published as New Directions Paperbook 287, 1970; published simultaneously in Canada by Penguin Books Canada Limited."--T.p. verso.

Genres: Plays, Drama, Theatre

288 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1970

About the author

Thomas Lanier Williams III, better known by the nickname Tennessee Williams, was a major American playwright of the twentieth century who received many of the top theatrical awards for his work. He moved to New Orleans in 1939 and changed his name to "Tennessee," the state of his father's birth.

Raised in St. Louis, Missouri, after years of obscurity, at age 33 he became famous with the success of The Glass Menagerie (1944) in New York City. This play closely reflected his own unhappy family background. It was the first of a string of successes, including A Streetcar Named Desire (1947), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955), Sweet Bird of Youth (1959), and The Night of the Iguana (1961). With his later work, he attempted a new style that did not appeal to audiences. His drama A Streetcar Named Desire is often numbered on short lists of the finest American plays of the 20th century, alongside Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey into Night and Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman.

Much of Williams' most acclaimed work has been adapted for the cinema. He also wrote short stories, poetry, essays and a volume of memoirs. In 1979, four years before his death, Williams was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame.

From Wikipedia

Reviews

[Jared · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed some of these, like the Mutilated, Confessional, I Can’t Imagine Tomorrow, and (my favorite) The Gnadiges Fraulein. The others fell flat for me, with “experimental” ideas that didn’t really work. My least favorites were I Rise In Flame Cried the Phoenix (great title tho) and A Perfect Analysis Given by a Parrot

[Benn · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a real find. I ran across it a The Half Price Book Store. These plays are all little gems. One in particular, Confessions, seemed familiar to me as I was reading it. Turns out Tennessee expanded it into a longer play called Small Craft Warnings, which I read a few years ago and has long since become one of my favorites from his later period. Serendipity!

[Roland · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a somewhat frustrating read. I loved The Mutilated and Confessional, but the rest I either enjoyed somewhat or found extremely frustrating to get through. Williams adopted a style in some of these plays that I found so grating that I was on the verge of skipping them but powered through anyway. What he does is have characters start talking in incomplete sentences. I'm sure this comes off better on stage, but reading it was grating as hell, so much so that I wanted to fling the book across the room when I'd hit those stretches. There are also surreal stories such as The Gnadiges Fraulein that just didn't work for me. I'll definitely revisit these at some point because of how much I love Williams' work, but for a first go through, it didn't do anything for me.

But still...the Mutilated was brilliant. When you read this you understand completely why John Waters was such a huge fan of his.

[Oriana]

Dragon Country: A Book of Plays by Tennessee Williams (1970)

[Kat · Rating 1 out of 5]

"Confessions" was pretty good. The other 7 plays were utter nonsense.