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The Rose Tattoo, by Tennessee Williams, with Introduction by John Patrick Shanley

$13.95

The Rose Tattoo, a play that captured audience’s hearts in the 1950s remains a testament to Tennessee Williams’ belief that staged drama allows us to most objectively see ourselves. The original production won many awards for best play as well as for the stage actors Eli Wallach and Maureen Stapleton. Anna Magnani received the Academy Award for Best Actress in the 1955 film version.

The Rose Tattoo tells the story of Sarafina delle Rose, a proud widow living in a village of Sicilian-Americans on the gulf coast of Louisiana. A shattering revelation disrupts Seregina’s life of grieving over her deceased husband and ultimately inspires her to completely transform herself.

In the “Introduction, John Patrick Shanley talks about how Tennessee Williams injects comedy into The Rose Tattoo which “deflates pretension and false seriousness.” John Patrick Shanley traces the nuances of Serafina’s ridiculousness and humanity and correctly states about Tennessee Williams’ script: “Nothing can stop his work from reaching the human heart.”

This is the first trade paperback edition of The Rose Tattoo and comes with the author’s original foreword entitled, “The Timeless World of Play,” plus an essay by noted Williams scholar Jack Barbera entitled “The Dog and the Rose,” the one-act play The Dog Enchanted by the Divine View which inspired The Rose Tattoo, and a Tennessee Williams chronology.