If ever the professional debut of a major playwright was a greater fiasco, history does not record it. Battle of Angels set a kind of high-water mark for disaster. 'The bright angels were pretty badly beaten in Boston,' Williams wrote to a friend.
-- Narrator (chapter 1 paragraph 3)

Importance: The opening of Tennessee Williams' first play and its reception serve as a marker for the progress of his development as an artist. His work and its public esteem rose from this dark nadir to a bright zenith of public acclaim and success that eventually labeled him a genius and the greatest of all American playwrights. On opening night, Williams left the theater "stunned, speechless and suicidal," according to the author.

At the time of his conversion to drama in his early 20s, Williams had never been backstage and had not seen more than two or three professional productions. For two decades, however he'd had a...
-- Narrator (chapter 1 paragraph 2)