Dec 16, 2009

The Oxford Dictionary of Plays | Orpheus Descending

Orpheus Descending

Alternative Title: Battle of Angels

Author: Tennessee Williams

First Performance: 1940, Boston (as Battle of Angels); rev. 1957, New York (as Orpheus Descending)

Published: 1945; rev. 1958, 1976

Genre: Drama in 3 acts

Setting: Dry goods store, small Southern town, c.1940

Cast: 10m, 9f

The Orpheus figure is a 30-year-old blues guitarist Val Xavier, who ‘descends’ penniless on a small Southern town and is taken in by Lady Torrance, the proprietress of a local store, whose elderly husband Jabe is dying of cancer. While Val offers Lady release from her loveless marriage, other women show interest in the handsome newcomer, including the town's richest and most promiscuous woman, now married to Lady's former lover, David Cutrere,...

[The entire page is 330 words long]

The Oxford Dictionary of Plays | Orpheus Descending

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