This is astounding news to me. All my life, I've heard about Laurette Taylor in The Glass Menagerie and think it's unconscionable that this recoring has never been made available to the public. To know that something actually exists sends chills up my spine. I don't have the wherewithal to hop a plane to Austin but God what I'd give to hear this.
One can well imagine should it be made public how much curmudgeons everywhere will revel to venemously spout "this is what they were raving about! I just don't get it!"
My pleasure, Ed. Might take me a little while to figure it all out (a few things sound a bit fishy from that article) but hopefully I can get some answers.
The idea of this give me chills! I'm getting ready to read Laurette's biography by her daughter, Marguerite Courtney, which comes highly recommended by Cherry Jones. Hopefully we can all hear Taylor someday!!
Weren't there some clips of these played in one or the other of the Broadway documentaries that came out a few years back? I seem to remember a montage of photos of Laurette Taylor performing that phone call scene -- "Horrors!"
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^ The montage of photos you're referring to was shown in "Broadway: The Golden Age." No clips of Taylor are used except the clip of her Hollywood screen test.
"I'm seeing the LuPone in Key West later this week. I'm hoping for great vocals and some sort of insane breakdown..." - BenjaminNicholas2
This reminds me that a few years ago I read a book about STREETCAR (can't remember the title) that mentioned there were recordings of Jessica Tandy doing Blanche. I would love to hear those as well.
StageStruck, that's much easier to find. This performance of excerpts from Streetcar (cleaned up for radio, unfortunately a bit) with Tandy and Brando was apparently aired as part of a radio broadcast of the Drama Desk Awards--however, though it doesn't say it here, I've read they were done as a tribute thing a few years after the show opened--maybe around 1950. It's great to hear, after reading so much about it, Jessica's Blanche which focuses more on the school marm aspect.
My high school English teacher, an eccentric, somewhat flamboyant figure who was beloved by the school but kept on a rather short leash (imagine if Auntie Mame was teaching Honors English) played our class an audio recording, apparently an LP rip, of what he claimed was the original cast recorded in the studio. I wasn't a bootleg trader or Broadway collector at that point or I would have tried to make a copy.
What I remember most was that- and I don't know if this was his doing or came on the tape- the recording ended with a bizarre "Glass Menagerie Megamix" of clips taken out of context, remixed, looped and rearranged to humorous and sometimes politically incorrect effect.
Bizarre--but I wanna hear it. Obviously, if it was most of the play, it wasn't the original cast since they never even did the play on radio... (and the film with the "uplifting" ending of the approaching new Gentleman Caller was a big old flop) The only full recording of a Williams play by its stage cast I know of and own a copy is a pretty good recording of the 1966 revival cast of The Rose Tattoo. It's well done (that was the period play "cast albums" were briefly being made by major labels--like the original cast of Virginia Woolfe and, I believe, Luv though I've never tracked down the latter.) And of course it's of most interest because Maureen Stapleton played Serafina, the role she originated on stage 15 years earlier (and honestly, though I've heard she always played older on stage, she's probably was more age appropriate to the role in 1966, since she was 26 in the first productios.) Harry Guardino plays Alvaro.
Very cool to hear the STREETCAR gang. Thanks so much, Eric! It's fun to hear how different Brando, Stanley and Malden sound than in the movie (more muted perhaps for the radio show because they were performing right in front of microphones). Tandy sounds a bit stilted to my ears, but maybe that's because I'm so used to Leigh's more sensual performance. Tandy does indeed sound like a school marm.
I recently read the book "Summer At Tiffany" and the author talks about seeing Laurette Taylor and saying she was funny and sad at the same time.
It seems from all accounts I've heard that Ms. Taylor was able to mix the comic aspects of Tennessee Williams along with the desperation and grinding poverty.
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