set gDates = [[], [0, "The Times, March 3, 1952", 0, "The Times, July 29, 1948"], ["The Times, Jan 31, 1958", "The Times, Sep 17, 1958", "The Times, April 10, 1959", "The Sunday Times, March 17, 1974", "The Times, Feb 28, 1983"]]
set gName = getat(["Williams"],1)
@[]#THE STREETCAR AND THE AMERICAN TRADITION##A STROLL ROUND THE GLASS MENAGERIE@BRUISING CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF#THE COLOUR OF WICKEDNESS IN NEW ORLEANS#THE CRY OF THE SWEET BIRD OF YOUTH#RETURN TICKET ON A DESIRABLE STREETCAR#PLAYWRIGHT CHOKED ON BOTTLE CAP
Williams' first writing - mostly poems and short stories - was done at night, to counter the boredom of his job in a shoe warehouse. He also worked as a waiter and cinema usher#Tennessee was a nickname Williams picked up in New Orleans. His real first names were Thomas Lanier#Williams suffered a nervous breakdown as a young man, mainly because of the puritanism of his mother and the tyrannical nature of his father, a travelling salesman#Williams attended a playwriting course at the University of Iowa, from which he graduated in 1938#Family pressures continued throughout his life: after an accident in his house in Key West, Williams' brother "had him immediately converted to Roman Catholicism" and committed to a psychiatric ward#One critic said Williams had "an ambiguity of aim: he seems to want to kick the world in the pants and yet be the world's sweetheart" #"We are all of us guineau-pigs in the laboratory of God. Humanity is just a work in progress." (Williams in Camino Real)#"We have to distrust each other. It is our only defense against betrayal." (Williams in Camino Real)#"We're all of us sentenced to solitary confinement ionside our own skins." (Williams in Orpheus Descending)#"If people behaved the way nations do," said Williams, "they would all be put in straitjackets."
