tennessee williams’ The Gnädiges Fräulein depicts the inhabitants of a rooming house in a place called Cocaloony Key. The titular character — now grown old, but still known as the “gracious young woman” — must support herself by competing for fish with the mythical cocaloony birds that hover threateningly overhead.

In the opening stage directions, Williams describes the set as “a totally unrealistic arrangement…I mean like Picasso designed it.” It only gets stranger from there. As Williams wrote in his preface to the play for Esquire: “The style…is kin to vaudeville, burlesque and slapstick, with a dash of pop art thrown in”.