Didn’t see it? A
pity. Not to worry, here’s a taste.
Like so much of
what the Morgan does best, the show narrows its focus on artist genius, on what
served as inspiration to take that genius and make art.
In the front of a
cherished book of Williams, the Collected Poems of Hart Crane, a young man of
22 who would later pave the way for daring work on the American stage,
scribbled:
“Alas for the poet, the dreamer . . . He fights a solitary battle against the world’s dullness.”
Elsewhere, we
learn that Williams could not contain his wild and lyric impulses, and early in
his life fled to Mexico, chased by his “Blue Angels” (what he called his dark
moods of depression. Any coincidence that Tony Kushner would write of Angels
during a modern period of mass depression, the American AIDS crisis?)
He writes of the
duality of the single heart, and I’m moved to near-tears, then read that “A Streetcar
Named Desire” would enjoy 855 performances, amazed that his words that elevate
and sting, a timeless outlet of wild and lyric impulses, live on.
Next: Running for Your Life: World Without Mind by Franklin
Foer
