He was 27.
Not About Nightingales was written in 1938 and would not have a production until its world premiere in 1998. Sixty years after it was written and more than a decade and a half after Williams’ death.
The fact that Williams never saw a production of this glorious play in his lifetime is a devastating fact to me as a playwright and director. This play is dark, dangerous and absolutely necessary. Before Menagerie. Before Streetcar. Before Cat. Before Sweet Bird. There was Nightingales. Taking place totally in a prison, a doomed love story emerges in classic Williams fashion. Overruled by a vicious Warden and a cruel Bully, one inmate finds hope drowned in violence.
We all know what was going on in the world while Williams was writing this. Hitler invaded Austria. Stalin was purging and putting on show trials. America was lynching Blacks while thousands of prisoners were rotting away in horrific prisons. America was finally edging its way out of the Great Depression. Hollywood was filming The Wizard of Oz and holding auditions for Gone With the Wind. And in St. Louis a young 27 year old was staying up day and night finishing his third draft of a prison play which would end with four prisoners roasting alive. Shit was Dark.
And that is what makes Nightingales such an exciting play. What would come to be known as Film Noir was in its heyday and this play basks in it. It also has and requires a remarkably diverse cast of characters, including identifiable gay, black, and jewish characters. Its by turns expressionistic, political, sexy, and horrid. It is Williams doing THE MOST. A criticism that has been attached to my own work since I began writing and directing and one that I wear now as a badge of honor. That is what binds me to this story and Williams work in general. I stand on his shoulders and others in their fearless attempt to do The Most. To put it all in there and keep it cooking.
The one and only Broadway production of this play garnered 6 Tony Nominations, including Best Play. It is a tour de force work of art that puts its Cast and Audience through a crucible much like the infamous “Klondike” steam dungeon at the center of the play.
As we move into an even stranger world of the rich and entitled running our country, this play its a searing testament to those we put in our prisons to rot while the felon run world outside is full of gangsters in control. I’m terribly excited to get inside of the mind and messiness of a 27 year old queer man whose demons led him to creating some of the most beautifully human yet disturbing characters ever written. While the world is falling apart Not About Nightingales rips off the bandaid of our prison industrial complex system that America has for far too long looked away from, dismissed and denied.
– Robert O'Hara, Director
