Now the Cats With Jeweled Claws & Other One-Act Plays

If you are new to Tennessee Williams this might not be the book to begin with, but these “slight” one-act plays, many only a few pages long, perhaps written quickly, provide insight into his imagination, themes and obsessions (among them old age, mortality, and Philistinism). This collection includes five plays appearing in print for the first time. New Directions is doing a service to literature by publishing them. The notes to the plays by Thomas Keith are helpful. Two plays are from 1939, the rest from the 1970s and 1980s, when Williams’ work became more experimental.Sometimes the experimentation is in the language, in truncated sentences, for example in a memorable dialogue between two women in “Now the Cats with Jeweled Claws”:“When I was younger than springtime, I went with a boy named Sky.”“So?”“Eyes clear as pools of water, and.”“Sky.”“Sky…”“Where is?”“Disappeared.”“Into?”“The wilderness of.” “His eyes.”“Too clear.”“For urban conditions. I didn’t catch what you said.”Some of these plays may be easier to take in by reading than by seeing a performance. In one short piece (“Aimez-vous Ionesco?”) Williams pokes fun at the theater of the absurd, but clearly he absorbed this influence himself and it appears in many of his late plays. The best piece in this collection, in my view, is “Steps Must Be Gentle,” a dialogue from beyond the grave between the poet Hart Crane and his mother.“The Demolition Downtown” belongs to the dystopian or apocalyptic vein in Tennessee Williams’ writing (not unlike “The Red Devil Battery Sign” and “The Knightly Quest”). The background of fear and panic in this play is due to a takeover of the United States by what appears to be a right-wing or fascist regime. In 2017, there may be renewed interest in this play.These may not be the best plays Tennessee Williams ever wrote, but even not at his best, he’s more interesting than many other writers.