The Tennessee Williams Encyclopedia

Tennessee Williams has been enjoying something of a posthumous critical renaissance. In the wake of the 1994 death of Williams' self-styled literary executor, Lady St. Just (Maria Britneva), scholars gained new access to Williams' unpublished papers, and New Directions published a series of important apprentice plays (Not About Nightingales, Spring Storm, Stairs to the Roof, and Fugitive Kind). Lyle Leverich's definitive biography of Williams' early years, Tom: The Unknown Tennessee Williams, appeared in 1995, while monographs by such scholars as David Savran, Ann Fleche, and Nicholas Pagan brought queer, poststructuralist, and postmodern perspectives to bear on their subject. And whereas the critical consensus used to be that Williams' creative achievement was over by the early sixties, the later plays have been plausibly reassessed.

No one has energized Williams studies more than Philip C. Kolin. In addition to writing numerous essays, Kolin has authored a book on A Streetcar Named Desire for Cambridge University Press' Plays in Performance Series (2000) and edited two important collections: Confronting Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire: Essays in Critical Pluralism (Greenwood, 1998), and The Undiscovered Country: The Later Plays of Tennessee Williams (Peter Lang, 2002). Now The Tennessee Williams Encyclopedia joins yet another Kolin-edited text, Tennessee Williams: A Guide to Research and Performance (Greenwood, 1998), as an essential reference work on this giant of American theatre.

Williams presents a staggering challenge to such a project. He wrote at least seventy plays, two novels, five collections of stories, and two volumes of poems, as well as essays, memoirs, letters, and journals. The Encyclopedia's stated goal is therefore not comprehensiveness – clearly impossible in a single-volume work. Rather, the work's fifty-seven contributors and 162 entries aim to "provide essential, basic information to help readers understand the context and performance of Williams's work and the contours of his life into which it fits" (xi). Seeking to balance biography, cultural history, and literary exegesis, Kolin opts for four types of entries: on individuals, on places, on works, and on concepts. Kolin has sought out recognized authorities in each sub-area, ensuring factual accuracy and cutting-edge analysis.

While the Encyclopedia covers the biographical waterfront – roughly half of the entries are on individuals important to Williams, ranging from writers, publishers, agents, and theatre people to family, friends, and lovers – fifty-four of the entries, one-third of the total, are on named Williams works. (Williams' one-acts receive extensive coverage but are not always listed individually.) Useful entries on plays both prominent and obscure provide brief production histories, along with concise explication, selective bibliographies, and a production still. Extensive attention is paid to Williams' fiction (in several entries), poetry, and essays, as well as to his journals, memoirs, correspondence, and even paintings. Film adaptations of Williams' plays are treated in a single, illuminating entry.

Psycho-biography is alive and well in these pages, as motifs in the work are continually traced back to authorial neuroses. Those who believe that Williams criticism has yet to free itself from the outsize Williams persona – arguably the writer's own best creation – may occasionally grow impatient, even while recognizing the conflation of man and work inherent in the volume's title. Seasoned Williams scholars seeking new perspectives will be drawn to the entries on key ideas, themes, ideologies, and theatrical techniques. As the preface claims, "these conceptual entries are both a synthesis of contemporary scholarly commentary on Williams and a synoptic guide for readers" – a book within a book (xiii). While these mini-essays occasionally devolve into catalogue, several are original and provocative. Here I would single out John Clum's "Gender and Sexuality," Brenda Murphy's "Politics," Kolin's "Race," and Thomas P. Adler's "Religion." One wishes that space could have been found for censorship, comedy, and stage technique. Pointedly, the encyclopedia lacks an entry on criticism; those seeking to trace Williams' critical reception must look elsewhere.

The Encyclopedia provides a fine biographical essay on Williams by Felicia Hardison Londré; a useful chronology (although performance-run statistics are inconsistently given); a somewhat erratic Guide to Related Topics ("Mythology" appears under "Family and Early History," while the "Awards, Collections, and Festivals" list omits "Manuscript Collections"); and up-to-date bibliographies of primary and secondary sources. Entries are helpfully cross-referenced. The entry on manuscript collections is especially welcome, but I missed a checklist of the various Williams newsletters and academic journals.

Occasional typos mar an otherwise exemplary edition. For instance, Suddenly Last Summer's Catharine appears throughout as "Catherine" or even "Catheriene," and we learn that The Remarkable Rooming-House of Mme. Le Monde "has never been preformed" (216). The stray gaffe has slipped in, too, as when the "Journals" entry credits You Can't Go Home Again to Tom (rather than Thomas) Wolfe. No doubt the next edition will receive the scrupulous proofreading attention this outstanding work of scholarship deserves. Meanwhile, for students and scholars of American theatre, the appearance of The Tennessee Williams Encyclopedia is cause for celebration.