Orpheus Descending

It was first presented on Broadway on March 17, 1957, with Maureen Stapleton and Cliff Robertson, under the direction of Harold Clurman, but had only a brief run (68 performances) and modest success.

Williams wrote the character of Myra Torrance for Tallulah Bankhead, but she turned down the role, saying "The play is impossible, darling, but sit down and have a drink with me.

[5] Battle of Angels remained un-produced in New York for 34 years, until the Circle Repertory Company opened their sixth season with it in 1974, directed by Marshall W. Mason.

[6] When Orpheus Descending appeared in 1957, Williams wrote: "On the surface it was and still is the tale of a wild-spirited boy who wanders into a conventional community of the South and creates the commotion of a fox in a chicken coop.

The play is a modern retelling of the ancient Greek Orpheus legend and deals, in the most elemental fashion, with the power of passion, art, and imagination to redeem and revitalize life, giving it new meaning.

The story is set in a dry goods store in a small southern town marked, in the play, by conformity, sexual frustration, narrowness, and racism.

Into this scene steps Val, a young man with a guitar, a snakeskin jacket, a questionable past, and undeniable animal-erotic energy and appeal.

Val, a metaphor for Orpheus, represents the forces of energy and eros, which, buried as they are in compromise and everyday mundanity, have the tragic power to create life anew.

As Lady dies, the local sheriff and fire squad break through the front door, and seeing Val trying to get out of the emporium, open their water hoses full force in an ultimately successful attempt to push him back into the burning building, thus murdering him.

In 1959, a screen adaptation starring Marlon Brando and Anna Magnani appeared under the title The Fugitive Kind; it was directed by Sidney Lumet, and flopped like the stage production.