TheScotsman.com – By Tim Cornwell
There was one play by Tennessee Williams, Pulitzer Prize-winning writer of such American classics as A Streetcar Named Desire, which he never wanted performed in his lifetime. It was And Tell Sad Stories of the Death of Queens, with its central character of a transvestite who brings a sailor home in the hope of seducing him.
It was Williams’s only openly homosexual play. Central character Candy was based on Candy Darling, a friend of his and one of several transsexuals who worked in Andy Warhol’s art factory and starred in his 1968 film Flesh. It is set in New Orleans’ steamy French quarter.