The tattooed rose

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The Tattooed Rose (Original: The Rose Tattoo) is a play by Tennessee Williams .

The play premiered on Broadway in 1951 . For Daniel Mann 's film adaptation of the same name from 1955, Williams worked with Hal Kanter on the script . The main roles were played by Anna Magnani and Burt Lancaster .

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Set in a Sicilian community in New Orleans, the piece focuses on the main character, Serafina delle Rose . It is about a 30 year old woman who lives with her husband and daughter in a modest house and trusts her husband blindly. He dies in the off when a drug smuggling is discovered. Like all of Williams' female heroes, Serafina is without a man on stage, you never see Rosario, you only learn about him through descriptions.

Serafina never recovers from her husband's death. For three years she does not change clothes, does not leave the house, worships her husband's ashes in the living room and makes life hell for her daughter Rosa, who discovers love for the first time.

The piece is characterized by symbols , such as the recurring black goat as a symbol for evil. Furthermore, the topic of pink / rose has a special meaning, which is due in particular to William's traumatic relationship with his sister Rose.

The play has little plot; it is mainly about Serafina's psyche, so the piece makes high demands on the actress in this role, since the success of the piece depends on her performance and embodiment.

Williams wrote this piece in one of his optimistic phases, so that it occupies an extraordinary position in the context of his otherwise very negative - pessimistic pieces.

premiere

The world premiere took place on February 3, 1951 at the Martin Beck Theater on Broadway . The director was Daniel Mann, who later also made the film. At the time, Maureen Stapleton , Eli Wallach and Martin Balsam played the main roles in the theater production .

Awards

The world premiere production won five Tony Awards . Tennessee Williams, the writer, and Cheryl Crawford, the producer, received the Best Play of the Year award. Maureen Stapleton and Eli Wallach received the awards for best leading actor and the Theater World Award . Boris Aronson received the award for the best stage design.

expenditure

  • Tennessee Williams: The Tattooed Rose. Piece in 3 acts . Translated from The rose Tattoo by Jörn van Dyck. 3rd edition. Fischer Taschenbuchverlag, Frankfurt 2002, ISBN 3-596-10542-0
    • First translation by Berthold Viertel , 1950, printed until 1990, also in numerous anthologies of dramas