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A Lovely Sunday for Creve Coeur: Play
In this masterful play, Tennessee Williams explores the meaning of loneliness and the need for human connection through the lens of four women and the designs and desires they harbor—for themselves and for each other.
It is a warm June morning in the West End of St. Louis in the mid-thirties––a lovely Sunday for a picnic at Creve Coeur Lake. But Dorothea, one of Tennessee Williams’s most engaging "marginally youthful," forever hopeful Southern belles, is home waiting for a phone call from the principal of the high school where she teaches civics––the man she expects to fulfill her deferred dreams of romance and matrimony. Williams’s unerring dialogue reveals each of the four characters of A Lovely Sunday for Creve Coeur with precision and clarity: Dorothea, who does even her "setting-up exercises" with poignant flutters; Bodey, her German roommate, who wants to pair Dotty with her beer-drinking twin, Buddy, thereby assuring nieces, nephews, and a family for both herself and Dotty; Helena, a fellow teacher, with the "eyes of a predatory bird," who would like to "rescue" Dotty from her vulgar, common surroundings and substitute an elegant but sterile spinster life; and Miss Gluck, a newly orphaned and distraught neighbor, whom Bodey comforts with coffee and crullers while Helena mocks them both. Focusing on one morning and one encounter of four women, Williams once again skillfully explores, with comic irony and great tenderness, the meaning of loneliness, the need for human connection, as well as the inevitable compromises one must make to get through "the long run of life."
99 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1979
About the author
Tennessee Williams
782 books3,826 followersThomas Lanier Williams III, better known by the nickname Tennessee Williams, was a major American playwright of the twentieth century who received many of the top theatrical awards for his work. He moved to New Orleans in 1939 and changed his name to "Tennessee," the state of his father's birth.
Raised in St. Louis, Missouri, after years of obscurity, at age 33 he became famous with the success of The Glass Menagerie (1944) in New York City. This play closely reflected his own unhappy family background. It was the first of a string of successes, including A Streetcar Named Desire (1947), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955), Sweet Bird of Youth (1959), and The Night of the Iguana (1961). With his later work, he attempted a new style that did not appeal to audiences. His drama A Streetcar Named Desire is often numbered on short lists of the finest American plays of the 20th century, alongside Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey into Night and Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman.
Much of Williams' most acclaimed work has been adapted for the cinema. He also wrote short stories, poetry, essays and a volume of memoirs. In 1979, four years before his death, Williams was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame.
From Wikipedia
Raised in St. Louis, Missouri, after years of obscurity, at age 33 he became famous with the success of The Glass Menagerie (1944) in New York City. This play closely reflected his own unhappy family background. It was the first of a string of successes, including A Streetcar Named Desire (1947), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955), Sweet Bird of Youth (1959), and The Night of the Iguana (1961). With his later work, he attempted a new style that did not appeal to audiences. His drama A Streetcar Named Desire is often numbered on short lists of the finest American plays of the 20th century, alongside Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey into Night and Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman.
Much of Williams' most acclaimed work has been adapted for the cinema. He also wrote short stories, poetry, essays and a volume of memoirs. In 1979, four years before his death, Williams was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame.
From Wikipedia
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
June 4, 2025
Did a cold table reading of this play with my friends. I read for Dorothea. Truly a delightful and hilarious play, with such incisive emotional reveals. The 1930s St. Louis setting was so wonderful!!! We loved cheering and clapping every time a neighborhood or street was mentioned that we know!!!! I love St. Louis 🫶
December 2, 2024
A Lovely Sunday For Creve Coeur
John Lahr's new biography, "Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh" (2014) has inspired me to revisit the works of this great American playwright. Thorough as it is in many respects, Lahr's book does not discuss this late play of Williams, "A Lovely Sunday for Creve Coeur." I remember the play from seeing it performed by a local theater company some years ago. And so I took the opportunity to begin with Williams with a rare work from near the end. The play, which premiered in its final version off-Broadway in New York City in 1979, is the last to appear in the Library of America's two-volume compilation of the plays of Tennessee Williams.
In the play, Williams has a character identify Creve Coeur as an amusement park next to a small lake in St. Louis in the mid-1930s. It was accessible by trolley. The play revolves around a planned Sunday visit to Creve Coeur, but none of the action takes place at the park. The name "Creve Coeur" means "broken heart", an apt symbolism for this bittersweet play.
The play is short, consisting of one act of two scenes. It is set in a small, cheap efficiency apartment in St. Louis in 1935 in surrounding which Williams' notes state "suggest the paintings of Ben Shahn: the dried-blood horror of lower-middle class American neighborhoods." Two women live in the apartment: Dorothea, a young high school teacher of civics who is approaching middle age, and her friend Bodey, a woman in her 40's, uneducated and unmarried who works in drudgery in a shoe factory. The two remaining characters of the play are both women. Much of the story revolves around relationships to men, but as with Creve Coeur, men do not appear on stage.
The play has themes of loneliness and of carrying on with life in the face of disappointment. It is more lighthearted than most of Williams with strong elements of comedy. Dorothea, who has had an early unhappy romance with a young classical musician, has allowed the principal of her high school to be intimate with her and has dreams of a lasting relationship. Bodey, who is earthy as well as partially deaf, fears for Dorothea's inevitable let-down. She is planning an outing to Creve Coeur in the company of her twin brother who is interested in Dorothea. Dorothea says she is uninterested in the man because she has given her heart to the principal.
As the two women discuss and prepare for the outing, the remaining two characters appear. A friend of Dorothea, Helena, who teaches art history at the high school, comes to the apartment uninvited to get Dorothea to sign a lease for an apartment the two will share in a more upscale neighborhood. She is appalled by the condition of the apartment, and tension builds between her and Bodey. The second visitor is a tenant of a different unit in the building, a woman of German descent named Miss Gluck who lives alone following the death of her mother. Miss Gluck is near psychotic, and a number of comic, near violent, and close to scatological moments ensue involving her and the three other women. The play revolves around Dorothea's dreaming of her imagined gentleman suitor and Bodey's attempt to help her friend with the possibility of rejection and to interest her in her brother.
The play has echoes of Williams famous works, particularly "The Glass Menagerie" and "A Streetcar Named Desire." It is a small work but tender, with insights into the lives of its primary characters, and rays of hope through acceptance. The play continues to be performed by amateur and by college theaters if not on a large professional stage. It is a small and intimate work which has its own valuable place in Williams' output.
Critic Clive Barnes said of the play during its brief run in New York: "This is not your usual Tennessee Williams tourist trip. It is sweet, honest, compassionate, different, and totally enjoyable." I was glad to have the opportunity to think about this play again.
Robin Friedman
John Lahr's new biography, "Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh" (2014) has inspired me to revisit the works of this great American playwright. Thorough as it is in many respects, Lahr's book does not discuss this late play of Williams, "A Lovely Sunday for Creve Coeur." I remember the play from seeing it performed by a local theater company some years ago. And so I took the opportunity to begin with Williams with a rare work from near the end. The play, which premiered in its final version off-Broadway in New York City in 1979, is the last to appear in the Library of America's two-volume compilation of the plays of Tennessee Williams.
In the play, Williams has a character identify Creve Coeur as an amusement park next to a small lake in St. Louis in the mid-1930s. It was accessible by trolley. The play revolves around a planned Sunday visit to Creve Coeur, but none of the action takes place at the park. The name "Creve Coeur" means "broken heart", an apt symbolism for this bittersweet play.
The play is short, consisting of one act of two scenes. It is set in a small, cheap efficiency apartment in St. Louis in 1935 in surrounding which Williams' notes state "suggest the paintings of Ben Shahn: the dried-blood horror of lower-middle class American neighborhoods." Two women live in the apartment: Dorothea, a young high school teacher of civics who is approaching middle age, and her friend Bodey, a woman in her 40's, uneducated and unmarried who works in drudgery in a shoe factory. The two remaining characters of the play are both women. Much of the story revolves around relationships to men, but as with Creve Coeur, men do not appear on stage.
The play has themes of loneliness and of carrying on with life in the face of disappointment. It is more lighthearted than most of Williams with strong elements of comedy. Dorothea, who has had an early unhappy romance with a young classical musician, has allowed the principal of her high school to be intimate with her and has dreams of a lasting relationship. Bodey, who is earthy as well as partially deaf, fears for Dorothea's inevitable let-down. She is planning an outing to Creve Coeur in the company of her twin brother who is interested in Dorothea. Dorothea says she is uninterested in the man because she has given her heart to the principal.
As the two women discuss and prepare for the outing, the remaining two characters appear. A friend of Dorothea, Helena, who teaches art history at the high school, comes to the apartment uninvited to get Dorothea to sign a lease for an apartment the two will share in a more upscale neighborhood. She is appalled by the condition of the apartment, and tension builds between her and Bodey. The second visitor is a tenant of a different unit in the building, a woman of German descent named Miss Gluck who lives alone following the death of her mother. Miss Gluck is near psychotic, and a number of comic, near violent, and close to scatological moments ensue involving her and the three other women. The play revolves around Dorothea's dreaming of her imagined gentleman suitor and Bodey's attempt to help her friend with the possibility of rejection and to interest her in her brother.
The play has echoes of Williams famous works, particularly "The Glass Menagerie" and "A Streetcar Named Desire." It is a small work but tender, with insights into the lives of its primary characters, and rays of hope through acceptance. The play continues to be performed by amateur and by college theaters if not on a large professional stage. It is a small and intimate work which has its own valuable place in Williams' output.
Critic Clive Barnes said of the play during its brief run in New York: "This is not your usual Tennessee Williams tourist trip. It is sweet, honest, compassionate, different, and totally enjoyable." I was glad to have the opportunity to think about this play again.
Robin Friedman
April 22, 2018
Funny, I don't remember this episode of Golden Girls.
Two stars.
Two stars.
August 23, 2025
Am always up for a story about a woman being in love with a man who suddenly gets engaged to someone else
April 5, 2018
I was enjoying it at first, getting to know the roommates. But once Helena came into the picture and Miss Gluck, I had a hard time keeping clear who was talking because sometimes it'd be first names, sometimes not. Basically, it could be my attention wasn't fully there but it just felt difficult. The agony that Dotty had was all too realistic though. Before the ending, I thought it was missing the bleak outlook that Tennessee usually uses but then I realized I had been too caught up in the story to realize the depressing story that was happening despite Dotty's best hopes and plans. I really enjoyed it in the end!
January 23, 2018
If you like Tennessee Williams you know what to expect. All the hall marks. But it felt like a lesser story than his greats, with the lead character a less successful shadow of Blanche. I love his word play and the pictures he creates which always engaged me.
June 3, 2017
I forced myself to finish this book. A very bad play. Nonsense
April 26, 2025
Ένα θεατρικό έργο χωρίς πλοκή. Πρωταγωνιστριες τέσσερις γυναίκες που είναι εγκλωβισμένες στη μίζερη ζωή τους. Το αμερικανικό όνειρο δεν έχει ενεργοποιηθεί σε αυτές. Πασχίζουν να επιβιώσουν από την μοναξιά τους. Οι κάθε μία αντιμετωπίζει την μοναξιά με διαφορετικό τρόπο.
August 7, 2025
Ότι και να γράψει (κι ας μιλάμε για ένα από τα ελάσσονα έργα του, χωρίς ιδιαίτερη πλοκή κι ανατροπές) οι ήρωες ξεπηδούν από τη σελίδα έτσι που με μαεστρία και τρυφερότητα σταφανώνει τις ήττες και τις καθηλώσεις τους.
June 23, 2023
TW lite. There isn't much here. At the end I closed the book and remembered very little..
September 10, 2024
از خیلی خیلی درون نگاه کردن
May 25, 2025
highly recommend doing a cold table read with your theater kid friends 5/5 star experience
September 16, 2025
I enjoyed it. Not as good as the classics but again, better than many of the shorter/later plays he did.
August 24, 2014
Is there a Tennessee Williams play I don't love? Silly and farcical and real and tragic all in the same breath.
January 19, 2015
I'm giving this two stars because it's technically a very bad play, but even bad Tennessee Williams is worth reading. Some classic tragic one-liners.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews