L I T E R AT U R E
Tennessee in New Orleans
WHERE ONE OF THE GREATEST PLAYWRIGHTS OF THE 20TH CENTURY FOUND A HOME By Alexandra Kennon
T
homas Lanier Williams III was born in Columbus, Mississippi in spring of 1911. But it was in the late 1930s, after his first stint in New Orleans’ French Quarter, that he became the enduringly-beloved playwright “Tennessee” Williams. Upon his first arrival, Williams mused in his journal, “Here surely is the place that I was made for, if any
in bars ranging from the upscale Hotel Monteleone to the more bohemian and gay-friendly Bourbon House Bar; all of which no doubt provided inspiration for his plays and personal life. “I think it helped him come to comfort with who he was, and also provided constant inspiration.” Williams first arrived in New Orleans in late December 1938 at the age of twenty-seven. After attending three universities, he had finally graduated earlier
place on this funny old world.” New Orleans’ uninhibited bohemian-ness offered a stark contrast to Williams’ strict Episcopalian upbringing in Columbus and later St. Louis, Missouri and allowed him the liberation to more deeply explore his own personality and imagination. “I think he felt free here. Discovered freedom here, discovered himself,” said Dylan Jordan, Interpretation Assistant at the Historic New Orleans Collection (HNOC), who also curated a French Quarter walking tour as part of the exhibition Backstage at a Streetcar Named Desire. “People say that he came to New Orleans as Tom and then transformed himself into Tennessee; that he kind of discovered his sexuality and passion for life here.” Williams’ life and work were characterized by his restlessness and frequent Courtesy of the Historic New Orleans Collection desire for new location; changes in scene. Though his itiner- that year with a B.A. from the University ant tendencies continued until his 1983 of Iowa, with middling grades (some B’s death in a New York City hotel room, and C’s, with an F in technical theatre), his journals and letters reveal a particular and found himself in the French Quarfondness for the Crescent City; he writes ter in time to celebrate the New Year. He of it with a quality of home. documented his immediate impression “I think New Orleans was an agent of the city in a letter to his mother the that helped him be okay with who he day after he first arrived, on the evening was,” posited Mark Cave, Senior Histo- of December 29, with the opening line: rian at the HNOC and curator of Back- “This is most fascinating place I’ve ever stage at A Streetcar Named Desire. “Plus been.” interacting with people, all sorts of peoA few days later, on January 2, 1939, he ple. I think that that was inspiring to elaborated on this thought—highlighthim. I lived in the Quarter before, and ing, from the perspective of the twenit’s like being in this sort of social pin- ty-first century reader, both similarities ball machine. You just kind of bounce and changes that have occurred in New from conversation to conversation and Orleans in the more than eighty years person to person. And I think that was since he penned his impressions: very, very good fuel for his writing.” I’m crazy about the city. I walk continCave also pointed out that while living in ually, there is so much to see … The QuarNew Orleans, Williams would hang out ter is really quainter than anything I’ve 38
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seen abroad—in many homes, the original atmosphere is completely preserved. Today being a holiday, I visited Audubon Park, which is lovelier than I could describe, blooming like summer with Palm Trees and live-oaks garlanded with Spanish Moss, beautifully laid out. Also visited the batture-dwellers (squatters) along the river, and, for contrast, the fine residential district and the two universities, Loyola and Tulane. The latter appears to be a splendid school—it was closed today so I’m going to
make another visit. The Quarter is alive with antique and curio shops where some really artistic stuff is on sale, relics of Creole homes that have gone to the block. I was invited to dinner Sunday by some people who own a large antique store. Their home is a regular treasure chest of precious objects. Food is amazingly cheap. I get breakfast at the French market for a dime. Lunch and dinner amount to about fifty cents at a good cafeteria near Canal Street. And the cooking is the best I’ve encountered away from home. Raw oysters, twenty cents a dozen! Shrimp, crab, lobster, and all kinds of fish—I have a passion for sea-food which makes their abundance a great joy. The courtyards are full of palms, vines and flowering poinsetta, many with fountains and wells, and all with grill-work, balconies, and little winding stairs. It is heaven for painters and you see them work-
ing everywhere. Mr. and Mrs. Heldner (Alice Lipp-mann’s friends) say that if I get desperate I can earn bread as a model—but I trust something better will turn up. Like many young, struggling artists at that time and today, part of New Orleans’ appeal for Williams was its affordable cost of living. He mused on the Quarter’s fluidity of class in a letter to his grandmother shortly after his arrival: I hope you will like the Vieux Carré. It is a very heterogenous neighborhood. Some very wealthy people live next door to some who are destitute— it is all mixed up. The atmosphere is pretty Bohemian but it is perfectly safe to walk around by yourself, even at night. If you like quaint old places you ought to enjoy it. He told his mother in the January 2, 1939 letter that his present money is “holding out pretty good,” and that he will write before he depletes it and provide a more permanent mailing address. Williams ended up staying in the Crescent City for a stint of seven weeks that first visit, living in an attic apartment at 722 Toulouse Street, which he once referred to as “a poetic evocation of all the cheap rooming houses of the world,” and would provide extensive fodder for his New Orleans-set plays, especially his 1970s play Vieux Carré. “He only lived there for a matter of weeks, but it was during that period that he first kind of fell in love with the city, and met people and had experiences that would inform his writing for the rest of his life,” said Jordan, whose walking tour on Williams’ life in the Quarter begins at 722 Toulouse, which belongs to the HNOC today. Williams’ landlady during his tenure on Toulouse, Mrs. Anderson, would be a particular source of inspiration—providing the basis for the harsh landlady character Mrs. White in Vieux Carré. Together, she and Williams opened a restaurant downstairs called Quarter Eat Shop, which they ran for around a week, and for which Williams coined the phrase “Meals for a Quarter in the Quarter”. Williams made up flyers featuring the phrase and wrote that he would pass them out in the street before rushing back inside to wait tables. I serve as
