John Lahr's remarkable biography of Tennessee Williams has received much press coverage over the past few weeks, and I won't attempt to compete with reviews in The New York Times or the New Yorker (also, I'm not close to finished reading the book). But, before I got Lahr's book, I had started the biography of Margo Jones - a now largely forgotten theater figure who launched the regional theater movement in Dallas in the 1940s before meeting an untimely death in a freak accident, and also distinguished herself as an early ally and staunch supporter of Tennessee Williams - and I'm much closer to finishing that book than Lahr's. Two observations come to mind: (1) Lahr is truly a gifted writer targeting a broad audience, and you can tell the difference in his writing with that of the book on Margo Jones (much more academic, although better written than other academic books, and unsurprisingly published by a university press), (2) it is worth noting how asymmetric relationships can be. Tennessee Williams holds such an important place in the Jones biography, but in the Williams biography, Jones is only mentioned here and there. Lahr quotes from Williams's letters to Jones, so it is clear they had a strong friendship, yet in the biography of the playwright it is obvious Jones played only a very small role, no matter how highly Williams thought of her advice. Simply, so many people surrounded him and impacted his life and career. Jones was only one among many. Still, it is interesting to read the same events told from different viewpoints by different writers for different purposes. Uber-famous Williams left us his plays, but now-forgotten Jones proved that theater should and could exist outside New York City's Broadway and left us the regional theater movement. She may only be a footnote to the life of someone who played center-stage in her own life, but her legacy is enormous.
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