Today, there is more information available about Tennessee Williams than ever before. Yet, despite this deluge of information, I argue that we are no closer to defining who Tennessee Williams was than the day that he died. In fact, one might even go so far to say that with each publishing of a new, rediscovered play or correspondence, we move one-step further from a strict definition of Tennessee Williams. Indeed, our search for Tennessee Williams is a fruitless one as a platonic form of Williams does not exist. The real, complete, or authentic Tennessee is a mirage. For every text that is brought into the light another interpretation of Williams is born. This process is mimicked in the multiplicity of biographical solo-performances that playwrights keep writing about Tennessee Williams with each passing year.
In this study, I examine the works of three different playwrights to see how they construct a fragmented image of Tennessee Williams within the genre of biographical solo-performance. I begin with an examination of Ray Stricklyn's Confession's of a Nightingale and how he fashions a performance of Williams's biography and celebrity. Next, I look at Will Scheffer's Tennessee and Me to examine how gay playwrights and activists have tried to reclaim Williams as a distinctly homosexual artist. Finally, I discuss Steve Lawson's A Distant Country Called Youth and Blanche and Beyond as performances that seek to objectify and sanitize the narrative of Williams. In addition to this "case-study," I also offer the political implications and consequences that each production has on our historical understanding of Tennessee Williams and on the genre of biographical solo-performance itself.