Reviews for Baby Doll and Other Plays

The average rating for Baby Doll and Other Plays based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2020-10-02 00:00:00 Thaddeus Bouska 2.75 stars! Oh,how disappointing! I had reasonable expectations but they were unfulfilled. I have the impression that Tennessee Williams� plays are better suited to films or to theatre than they are to be read. When compared to Oscar Wilde, Sophocles, Shakespeare, Arthur Miller, Lope de Vega, Henrik Ibsen, Federico Garcia Lorca, Euripides, and Bertolt Brecht , among others who wrote plays that are as captivating in-text as they are on stage, Tennessee Williams is rather ordinary. I have watched Tennessee Williams�s A Streetcar Named Desire, it was brilliant. I have not read it though, and, based on my experience reading Baby Doll and Other Plays, I am hesitant to read it. Frankly, I don�t know if I will give Tennessee Williams another chance because I have an extremely long �to-read� list that I consider 'must-reads'. Now, I shall explain why I did not like Baby Doll and Other Plays. I will not be discussing the plot of any of these plays, ergo, my review is spoilers-free. There are three plays in this book: Baby Doll, Something Unspoken, and Suddenly Last Summer. My favourite play, which I thoroughly enjoyed, was also the shortest one: Something Unspoken. Another play that I found just adequate was Suddenly Last Summer. It has potential but ultimately Suddenly Last Summer fails to deliver what it promises; the denouement is particularly lacklustre. Suddenly Last Summer was another case of �building up� yet never reaching its climax but going downhill�which curiously is one of the �key� words uttered toward the end of this play. Lastly, there is Baby Doll, which was an insipid, chaotic, vulgar, and utterly futile play. I did not like it at all. In fact, after reading half of Baby Doll, all I wanted was for it to finish and to take a day off -or two- before reading the next two plays. This book would have worked better for me, if it were called �Something Unspoken and Other Plays� instead of �Baby Doll and Other Plays�. Going from the shortest and wittiest play to the longest and dullest one would have enhanced my reading experience. Since Goodreads does not have half or quarter stars, I must round it to 3 stars. Below I am also sharing the plays� individual rating: The main play, Baby Doll, was in my opinion, a fiasco but the initial pages were enjoyable so 1.5 stars. I Ioved the shortest play, Something Unspoken: 4 stars for that one; oh, I wish it went for longer! Suddenly Last Summer is, to me, a 2.75, stars; coincidentally, as you can see, this rating also reflects how I feel about the book as a whole.

Review # 2 was written on 2019-05-27 00:00:00 Carlton Noffsinger 4 stars each for Baby Doll and Suddenly Last Summer (which I think is probably the best of the three) and 3 stars for Something Unspoken which is good but not particularly memorable compared to most of Tennessee Williams� plays.