Something Cloudy, Something Clear
(New Directions)
Something Cloudy, Something Clear is an autobiographical play by Tennessee Williams that was originally written in 1941 as a short play titled The Parade, or Approaching the End of a Summer, which was produced posthumously in Provincetown in 2006. In 1962, Williams retitled and expanded The Parade into a full-length play that was first produced Off-Off-Broadway in 1981.[1][2] Both versions of the play are set on the wharfs of Provincetown, Massachusetts, and tell the story of a young playwright named August dealing with his unrequited homosexual love for another man.
The situations and characters in both were "clearly drawn from a very autobiographical foundation,"[3] with August's dilemma reflecting a relationship Williams had in Provincetown with "his actual lover for [one] summer, Kip Kiernan."[2] The Parade was written after a fight with Kiernan, and Williams reflected in 1962 that "[the version of Kip in that play] is very completely different from Kip as he was. When someone hurts us deeply, we no longer see them at all clearly. Not until time has put them back in focus."[1]
Williams' revised version of the play, titled Something Cloudy, Something Clear, opened on August 24, 1981 at The Bouwerie Lane Theatre in New York City to unenthusiastic reviews.[3]
It received its British professional premiere at the Finborough Theatre in London in 2003 with James Hillier in the lead role as August, where it sold out for the entire run.
References
- ^ a b Leverich, Lyle (1995). Tom: The Unknown Tennessee Williams. New York: Crown. p. 364. ISBN 0-393-31663-7.
- ^ a b Fritscher, Jack (2001-09-20). "We All Live on Half of Something" (pdf) (reprint ed.). Playbill. Retrieved 2007-05-30.
- ^ a b Sanderson, Jordan, and Raymond W. Wachter. Something Cloudy, Something Clear (fee required), Literary Encyclopedia, 2005-03-03. Retrieved on 2007-05-30.
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Works by Tennessee Williams
- Candles to the Sun (1936)
- Spring Storm (1937)
- Fugitive Kind (1937)
- Not About Nightingales (1938)
- Battle of Angels (1940)
- Auto-da-Fé (1941)
- The Glass Menagerie (1944)
- You Touched Me (1945)
- Stairs to the Roof (1947)
- A Streetcar Named Desire (1947)
- Summer and Smoke (1948)
- The Rose Tattoo (1951)
- Camino Real (1953)
- Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955)
- Orpheus Descending (1957)
- Suddenly Last Summer (1958)
- Sweet Bird of Youth (1959)
- Period of Adjustment (1960)
- The Night of the Iguana (1961)
- The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore (1963)
- The Seven Descents of Myrtle (1968)
- In the Bar of a Tokyo Hotel (1969)
- Will Mr. Merriweather Return from Memphis? (1969)
- Out Cry (1971)
- Small Craft Warnings (1972)
- The Two-Character Play (1973)
- The Red Devil Battery Sign (1975)
- This Is (An Entertainment) (1976)
- Vieux Carré (1977)
- A Lovely Sunday for Creve Coeur (1979)
- Clothes for a Summer Hotel (1980)
- The Notebook of Trigorin (1981)
- Something Cloudy, Something Clear (1981)
- A House Not Meant to Stand (1982)
- In Masks Outrageous and Austere (1983)
- The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone (1950)
- Moise and the World of Reason (1975)
collections
- Hard Candy: A Book of Stories (1954)
- Three Players of a Summer Game and Other Stories (1960)
- The Knightly Quest: a Novella and Four Short Stories (1966)
- One Arm and Other Stories (1967)
- Eight Mortal Ladies Possessed: a Book of Stories (1974)
- The Glass Menagerie (1950)
- A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)
- The Rose Tattoo (1955)
- Baby Doll (1956)
- Suddenly, Last Summer (1959)
- The Fugitive Kind (1959)
- Ten Blocks on the Camino Real (1966)
- Boom! (1968)
- The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond (1957, filmed 2008)
- "The Catastrophe of Success" (1947)
- "A Streetcar Named Success" (1947)
- In the Winter of Cities (1956)
- Androgyne, Mon Amour (1977)
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