Summer and Smoke

Summer and Smoke is a 1948 play by Tennessee Williams, originally titled Chart of Anatomy when Williams began work on it in 1945. In 1964, Williams revised the play as The Eccentricities of a Nightingale. Summer and Smoke takes place in Glorious Hill, Mississippi. It centers on a high-strung, unmarried minister's daughter (Alma Winemiller) and the spiritual/sexual romance that nearly blossoms between her and the wild, undisciplined young doctor w... more

Summer and Smoke is a 1948 play by Tennessee Williams, originally titled Chart of Anatomy when Williams began work on it in 1945. In 1964, Williams revised the play as The Eccentricities of a Nightingale. Summer and Smoke takes place in Glorious Hill, Mississippi. It centers on a high-strung, unmarried minister's daughter (Alma Winemiller) and the spiritual/sexual romance that nearly blossoms between her and the wild, undisciplined young doctor who grew up next door (Dr. John Buchanan, Jr.). Quite a point is made in the play that Alma's name is the Spanish word for soul. She, ineffably refined, identifies with the gothic cathedral, "reaching up to something beyond attainment", whereas John, doctor and sensualist, defies her with the soul-less anatomy chart for proof. (John: "You know who's crowned with most of the glory on this earth? The one who uses his senses to get all he can in the way of--satisfaction.") By play's end, however, Alma and John have traded places philosophically.... less