Period of Adjustment

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Period of Adjustment

Theatrical film poster
Directed by George Roy Hill
Produced by Lawrence Weingarten
Written by Isobel Lennart
Tennessee Williams
Starring Anthony Franciosa
Jane Fonda
Jim Hutton
Lois Nettleton
John McGiver
Music by Lyn Murray
Cinematography Paul Vogel
Editing by Fredric Steinkamp
Distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Release date(s) October 31, 1962
Running time 112 min
Country Flag of the United States United States
Language English
IMDb profile

Period of Adjustment is a 1960 play by Tennessee Williams that was adapted for the screen in 1962, in a film directed by George Roy Hill and starring Jane Fonda. Both the stage and film versions are set on Christmas Eve and tell the gentle, light-hearted story of two couples, one newlywed and the other married for five years, both experiencing pains and difficulties in their relationships. The two male characters are war veterans (Korean War), and the younger of the two suffers from post traumatic stress (shellshock, battle fatigue, combat stress reaction). While the older man suffers from feelings of inadequacy towards his wife, the daughter of his boss. However, the observance of each other’s troubles brings both couple to realize what they have and to reconcile their own relationships.

Williams wrote the first draft of the play in November 1958, "in a rush of activity partly induced by drugs."[1] It was workshopped for a week in December 1958 and officially premiered at the Helen Hayes Theatre on Broadway on November 10, 1960. The play, which Williams subtitled "a serious comedy," was a departure from the playwright's usual dark dramas, and was written partly in response to a Hollywood columnist who had asked why his plays were always "plunging into the sewers."[2] Williams responded to the criticism by writing Period of Adjustment and arguing, in a piece that ran in The New York Times,

“ The theatre has made its greatest artistic advance through the unlocking and lighting up and ventilation of the closets, attics, and basements of human behaviour and experience. No significant area of human experience should be held inaccessible, provided it is presented with honest intention and taste, to the writers of our desperate time.[2] ”

The play received average reviews and closed March 4, 1961 after 132 performances. In February 2006, the play was revived at the Almeida Theatre.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Spoto, Donald (1985). The Kindness of Strangers: The Life of Tennessee Williams. Boston: Little Brown. ISBN 0-306-80805-6.  p. 228.
  2. ^ a b Delicate people | Review | Guardian Unlimited Books

[edit] External links


v • d • e
Plays by Tennessee Williams
Apprentice plays
Candles to the Sun (1936) • Spring Storm (1937) • Fugitive Kind (1937) • Not about Nightingales (1938) • Battle of Angels (1940) • You Touched Me (1945) • Stairs to the Roof (1947)
Major plays
The Glass Menagerie (1944) • A Streetcar Named Desire (1947) • Summer and Smoke (1948) • The Rose Tattoo (1951) • Camino Real (1953) • Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955) • Orpheus Descending (1957) • Suddenly, Last Summer (1958) • Sweet Bird of Youth (1959) • Period of Adjustment (1960) • The Night of the Iguana (1961)
Later plays
The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore (1963) • The Seven Descents of Myrtle (1968) • In the Bar of a Tokyo Hotel (1969) • Will Mr. Merriweather Return from Memphis? (1969) • Small Craft Warnings (1972) • The Two-Character Play (1973) • The Red Devil Battery Sign (1975) • This Is (An Entertainment) (1976) • Vieux Carré (1977) • Creve Coeur (1979) • Clothes for a Summer Hotel (1980) • The Notebook of Trigorin (1980) • Something Cloudy, Something Clear (1981) • A House Not Meant to Stand (1982)
Other