Editing Orpheus Descending (section)

{{Short description|1957 play by Tennessee Williams}}
{{Italic title}}
{{For|the John Mellencamp album|Orpheus Descending (album)}}
{{more citations needed|date=April 2009}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=April 2025}}
[[File:OrpheusDescending.JPG|thumb|First edition cover<br />([[New Directions Publishing|New Directions]], 1958) ]]
'''''Orpheus Descending''''' is a three-act play by [[Tennessee Williams]]. It was first presented on [[Broadway theatre|Broadway]]  on March 17, 1957, with Maureen Stapleton and Cliff Robertson, under the direction of Harold Clurman, but had only a brief run (68 performances) and modest success.<ref>[http://ibdb.com/production.php?id=2624 "Orpheus Descending" (1957)] on the [[Internet Broadway Database]]</ref> It was revived on Broadway in 1989, directed by [[Peter Hall (director)|Peter Hall]] and starring [[Vanessa Redgrave]] and [[Kevin Anderson (actor)|Kevin Anderson]].<ref>{{cite news | access-date = February 1, 2017 | date = September 26, 1989 | first = Howard |last = Kissel | work = Chicago Trubune | url = https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1989-09-26-8901170150-story.html | title = 'Orpheus' Descends With An Overacted, Miscast Version }}</ref> The production ran for 13 previews and 97 performances.<ref>[http://ibdb.com/production.php?id=4245 "Orpheus Descending" (1989)] on the [[Internet Broadway Database]]</ref>

The play is a rewrite of an earlier play by Williams called ''Battle of Angels'', which was written in 1940. Williams wrote the character of Myra Torrance for [[Tallulah Bankhead]], but she turned down the role, saying "The play is impossible, darling, but sit down and have a drink with me."<ref>{{cite book| last= Williams| first=Tennessee |url= https://archive.org/details/whereiliveselect00will_0 | url-access= registration| title=Where I Live: Selected Essays |location =New York |publisher=New Directions Publishing |date= 1978 |page=[https://archive.org/details/whereiliveselect00will_0/page/151 151] |isbn=978-0-8112-0706-5}}</ref> The production previewed in Boston the same year, starring [[Miriam Hopkins]]. It was the first produced play written by Williams and by his account it "failed spectacularly". At one point, Boston's city censors and the City Council threatened to shut down the production over its "lascivious and immoral" language.<ref>"Clean Up or Shut 'Angels' -- Boston," New York Daily News, 7 Jan. 1941</ref> ''Battle of Angels'' remained un-produced in New York for 34 years, until the [[Circle Repertory Company]] opened their sixth season with it in 1974, directed by [[Marshall W. Mason]].

Williams was rewriting ''Battle of Angels'' by 1951.<ref>Williams, Tennessee. ''The Selected Letters of Tennessee Williams, Volume II, 1945–1957''. New York: New Directions, 2004, p. 380  {{ISBN|0-8112-1600-4}}</ref> When ''Orpheus Descending'' appeared in 1957, Williams wrote: "On the surface it was and still is the tale of a wild-spirited boy who wanders into a conventional community of the South and creates the commotion of a fox in a chicken coop. But beneath that now familiar surface it is a play about unanswered questions that haunt the hearts of people and the difference between continuing to ask them...and the acceptance of prescribed answers that are not answers at all."{{citation needed|date=April 2025}}