American Playwrights Theater: The One-Acts (TV Series) 27 Wagons Full of Cotton (1990) User Reviews

Chilling, well acted, depressing

[nachtzoen · 8/10 · 29 May 2004]

Tennessee Williams described this as a comedy, but if it's a comedy, it's guaranteed to bring you right down. Really makes you wonder what kind of man TW was.

It's a taut and chilling drama, with excellent performances all around. It's about greed, lust, and men who consider women as commodities, possessions to be bought and sold. Leslie Ann Warren plays a wonderful "Baby Doll" type character, a 4 year old in a voluptuous body, and Ray Sharkey and Peter Boyle are wonderful as well.

Well worth watching, sends a chill down your spine to think about the kind of men this show portrays, I'm sure there are many of them out there.

excellent performances

[mpgmpg123 · 29 March 2003]

This was part of the A & E series Playwright's Theatre from the early 1990's. Each week was a one act play, this one by Tennessee Williams. The performances in this remake of the movie Baby Doll are all excellent. Ray Sharkey plays the man whom manipulates and seduces Lesley Ann Warren, the wife of the low character played by Peter Boyle. He almost sets it up for the wife to be seduced so he can get a cheaper price for his cotton. Lesley Ann Warren, who at this time was at the peak of her career, gives an outstanding performance as the not very bright woman who is manipulated and essentially raped by the end of the story. She is able to show this "baby doll" woman as a woman used as a plaything and victim and the dangers of accepting this type of thinking, that humans are to be used by other humans, for all people.