Tennessee Williams World Premiere Cock Tavern Theatre Programme

CHAU1502  A rare 16 page b&w souvenir for this specialist production at the Cock Tavern of Tennessee Williams I Never Get Dressed Till After Dark On Sundays with cast pictures and full information and in pristine condition.

Written in 1970, shortly after Williams came out of rehab, and featuring the play-within-a-play format he also used in Out Cry, the story follows a once-famed but now derided playwright, ageing and alcoholic, as he faces up to the final run-through of his latest play. The director is a money-grabbing hack, the stage manager a drama queen and the actors uncomfortable with their roles. But as the rehearsal continues, unexpected truths are revealed.

The play they are staging is set in a tiny New Orleans apartment, where two lovers the drifting and feckless Tye (Lewis Hayes) and the more together but wired Jane (Shelley Lang) are reaching what appears to be the end of their relationship; outside, tourists babble in the courtyard. There are hints of Alexandre Dumas's Camille in this story, which was clearly inspired by Williams own relationship in the 1940s with a young gay man who ended their affair but didn't reveal he was dying of a brain tumour.