ESSENTIAL TENNESSEE WILLIAMS Excerpts From the Glass Menagerie and Poems

In this 1952 recording, Williams reads sections of THE GLASS MENAGERIE, several poems, mostly short, and a wicked little story about a preacher's daughter gone bad. His voice is rich, his accent pleasant, even charming, and his lisp pronounced, which takes some getting used to. He has an actor's command of emotional inflection, but with no self-indulgence; he moves everything along with unsentimental briskness. In MENAGERIE, he sometimes gives speaker ascription, sometimes not, which also takes getting used to, but it works. In fact, he's better at the dialogue than the soliloquies, which could do with a little hamminess. Williams's idiosyncratic reading would entertain even if it didn't arouse interest as the author's take on his own creations. W.M. © AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine [Published: JUN/ JUL 07]