The Case of the Crushed Petunias
The Case of the Crushed Petunias is a one-act play by Tennessee Williams ()[].
Contents
The original text
The play tells of Miss Dorothy Simple, proprietor of the Simple Notions Shop in Primanproper, Massachusetts, who has barricaded her house and heart behind a double row of petunias, and the way her life is transformed by the arrival of a Young Man from "Life, Incorporated", who alerts her to the "miraculous accident of being alive" and the tremendous inspiration that lies beyond what one can buy or sell in a shop with four walls.
The play premiered at the Karamu Theatre in Cleveland, Ohio in February 1957 under the direction of Reuben Silver.
Published by Concord Theatricals on 2011 as part of the collection The Magic Tower and Other One-Act Plays, edited by Thomas Keith, with a Forword by Terrence McNally.
Translations and adaptations
Translated into Afrikaans as Gekneusde Petunias and adapted for radio by Alewyn Lee in 1967.
Performance history in South Africa
1967: Broadcast by the SABC in its programme Kleinteater ("Little Theatre") on 14 February at 20h00.
Sources
https://www.concordtheatricals.com/p/8565/the-case-of-the-crushed-petunias
Typed SABC script of the Afrikaans text of Gekneusde Petunias, found in the radio archives of the Stellenbosch Drama Department.
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