For Whom The Southern Belle Tolls

Background:

The playwright of For Whom the Southern Belle Tolls is Christopher Durang. Durang was born in Montclair, New Jersey and grew up in Berkeley Heights, New Jersey. He received a B.A. in English from Harvard and an M.F.A. in playwriting from Yale School of Drama. He was well educated in the art of theatre and this can be clearly seen throughout many of his shows, not solely this one in particular. Durang was also influenced by his culture and family style growing up. He incorporated many of these themes into his works. One of which is his early theatre experiences of going to see musical comedies. He claims that this is one of the reasons that he writes comedic shows. It would be normally thought that because his early life and family

One of which is his consistent postmodernism. Durang also had a style in which he liked to mesh the present and past theatre techniques. The structuralist theater was combined with the traditional domestic drama prior to Durang’s time. This among other things is said to have violated the principles of “the well-made play”. Durang does not follow tradition, instead infusing his style to make a piece unique. Using an absurdist approach, Durang expresses a few common themes throughout many of his pieces including fear, insecurity, and the evil elements of human nature and the social hierarchy. Specifically, in order to express this idea Durang uses the “incompetent

Tennessee Williams is the author of The Glass Menagerie, the play that Durang based his show off of. Contrary to Durang, Williams used many aspects of his life as direct influences of characters in his work. One very good example is the lack of a father influence on the children of the family. William’s own father was absent the majority of his life and when he did see him, he was described as being vulgar and an alcoholic. William’s mother on the other hand was very much the opposite. She is described as being very quiet and possessive of her children especially. These characteristics are very well portrayed in The Glass Menagerie, and therefore have a significant impact on For Whom the Southern Belle Tolls. This is just one example, but the idea of Tennessee Wiliam’s personal experiences being a direct influence on his work is prevalent throughout his