Suddenly Last Summer

Suddenly Last Summer is a one-act play by Tennessee Williams (1911-1983)[1]

The original text

Written in New York in 1957, the play focusses on Catherine Holly's recollection of her cousin Sebastian's death, a traumatic event that others, including his mother, want to suppress. The central conflict revolves around whose version of the truth will be believed and how past events are remembered and interpreted.

It opened Off Broadway on January 7, 1958, as part of a double bill with his play Something Unspoken (written in London in 1951).The production was titled Garden District, but Suddenly Last Summer became a renowned work in its own right.

It opened in London, under club conditions, at the Arts Theatre on September 16, 1958, running until October 11.

The play was reworked for film by Gore Vidal and filmed in 1959, directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz.[2] Released as Suddenly, Last Summer.

The play was adapted for BBC Television in 1993 under the direction of Royal National Theatre head Richard Eyre and starring Maggie Smith, Rob Lowe, Richard E. Grant and Natasha Richardson.[]

The play text was published in Suddenly Last Summer and Other Plays in 1958[3]

Translations and adaptations

Translated into Afrikaans as Skielik Verlede Somer by an unnamed author. Possibly a playwriting project undertaken for a drama class at Stellenbosch University Drama Department. (A copy of the translation found in the Stellenbosch Drama Department's theatre archives and now held in the Performing Arts Research Collection (PARC) at the Africa Open Institute for Music, Research and Innovation, with offices at Pieter Okkers House, 7 Joubert Street, Stellenbosch, South Africa.)