Williams considers *Suddenly, Last Summer* his most poetic work, “a moral fable for our troubled times.” When he saw Mankiewicz’s film adaptation, he was deeply disappointed by the decision to depict Sebastian’s death realistically (not to mention the censorship regarding homosexuality). It is a text rich in symbols and metaphors right from the initial description of the stage setting: “The set design may stray from realism as much as the setting of a dramatic ballet. The interior blends into a magnificent garden that looks more like a tropical jungle, a forest from the prehistoric era of giant fern forests, when living creatures had fins that turned into limbs and scales that became skin. It is a jungle-garden of vivid colors, especially now that it is oozing steam from the heat following the rain. On the trees are enormous flowers that bring to mind the organs of a body, torn out, still glistening with fresh blood. There are shrill screeches, hissing rustles, and lashing noises in the garden, as if it were inhabited by beasts, snakes, and birds, all of a wild nature…”.
Many elements of the text allude to creation (artistic, biblical, biological) and the death drive. His experience with psychoanalysis and his approach to the Catholic faith certainly had a major impact on Williams’s writing during those years, which he describes as “emotionally autobiographical.” The characters are inspired by his family members and by certain significant events in his life: his sister Rose’s illness, his symbiotic relationship with his mother, his nervous breakdown, his “spiritual” journeys, and his sexuality. Delving deeper into the details of the author’s biography and discovering his torments and vulnerabilities allowed me to better understand that feeling that overwhelmed me the first time I read the text: a great act of atonement and purification from pain. There is something cathartic in the violence and brutality that Williams unleashes in the final story, “Catharine.”  
To evoke the “visions” present in the text, we envisioned a stage design that blends temporal and spatial planes: the jungle-like garden becomes the unconscious of the author Williams and, at the same time, of the poet Sebastian. Memories and visions blend together in an interplay of symbols that echoes the workings of dreams. It is only in this dreamlike dimension that the desire to be fully oneself can be fulfilled, transcending the facades imposed by an increasingly miserable and ruthless society.