Tennessee Williams' journey from first reading Chekhov's The Sea Gull to his adaptation of that play as The Notebook of Trigorin mirrored his own creative life. Early on, Williams thought of directing The Sea Gull, and, over the years, often returned to the play, his empathy gradually shifting from Constantine, the youthful experimenter, to Trigorin, the world-weary writer. Williams, in his pursuit of success, had also made compromises. Near the end of his life, Williams realized his dream to interpret The Sea Gull when the University of British Columbia sponsored a production at the...

Fugitive Kind, one of Tennessee Williams's earliest plays, is one of his richest in dramatic material. Written in 1937 when the playwright was still Thomas Lanier Williams, Fugitive Kind introduces the character who will inhabit most of his later plays: the marginal man or woman who, through no personal fault, is a misfit in society but who demonstrates an admirable will to survive. Signature Tennessee Williams' characters, situations, and even the title (which was used as The Fugitive Kind for the 1960 film based on Orpheus Descending) have their genesis here. At...