Brilliant Acting Puts Life Into Two Williams Plays
by Stanley Meisler
Commentary by Stanley Meisler
January 18, 1955
January 1955
New Orleans, Louisiana
original articleThe Shreveport Journal (Shreveport, Louisiana)
original articleNo items found.
Staged at New Orleans - Brilliant acting by Maureen Stapleton and the music of a young Italian last night put life into two aging plays of Tennessee Williams. The Pulitzer prize-winning playwright watched his "27 Wagons Full of Cotton" and an English opera by 32-year-old Rafaello de Banfield in a world premiere here. The opera, "Lord Byron's Love Letter," is based on the Williams play. Both plays were published 10 years ago. The moods of the two works do not blend. "27 Wagons Full of Cotton" is coarse and comic, while the opera is poetic and almost fragile. But both are good theater, and there is no difficulty in enjoying their separate emotions. Miss Stapleton is exciting as the soft, giggling wife a Mississippi cotton gin owner unknowingly trades for burning down a big plantation gin. She moves deftly between scenes of pain and laughter...
Staged at New Orleans - Brilliant acting by Maureen Stapleton and the music of a young Italian last night put life into two aging plays of Tennessee Williams. The Pulitzer prize-winning playwright watched his "27 Wagons Full of Cotton" and an English opera by 32-year-old Rafaello de Banfield in a world premiere here. The opera, "Lord Byron's Love Letter," is based on the Williams play. Both plays were published 10 years ago. The moods of the two works do not blend. "27 Wagons Full of Cotton" is coarse and comic, while the opera is poetic and almost fragile. But both are good theater, and there is no difficulty in enjoying their separate emotions. Miss Stapleton is exciting as the soft, giggling wife a Mississippi cotton gin owner unknowingly trades for burning down a big plantation gin. She moves deftly between scenes of pain and laughter...
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