In the Bar of a Tokyo Hotel

Mark is an alcoholic painter on the verge of a nervous breakdown who is trying to boost his sagging career by developing a new style in his Tokyo hotel room. Instead, he has convinced himself he is the first artist to discover color, and it appears he has drifted into psychosis as he spreads canvases on the floor, sprays paint at them with a spray gun, and rolls around on them in the nude.

Meanwhile, his promiscuous wife Miriam, a typical Ugly American, is loudly and crudely trying to seduce the bartender in the hotel lounge. Anxious to be free of her husband without losing his financial support, she has contacted his Manhattan art dealer and close friend Leonard and asked him to join them in Japan. When he arrives, she tries to persuade him to take her husband back to New York, but Mark dies. Feeling lost and without direction, she laments, "I have no plans. I have nowhere to go" as the curtain falls.

Although credited to the direction by Herbert Machiz, Tennessee Williams took over the direction and staged the play himself for its off-Broadway premiere at the Eastside Playhouse on May 11, 1969. It ran for 25 performances.^[1][2] The cast included Donald Madden as Mark, Anne Meacham as Miriam, and Lester Rawlins as Leonard.

The British premiere of the play was given by Internationalist Theatre in July 1983 at the New End Theatre Hampstead, London, with Nic d`Avirro as Mark, Angelique Rockas as Miriam, directed by Alkis Kritikos, and designed by Stewart Laing.^[3]

In February 2007, the White Horse Theater Company mounted a revival directed by Cyndy Marion at the Abingdon Theatre Arts Complex in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan.^[4]

In March 2012, 292 Theatre at 292 E. 3rd Street in New York City mounted a 15-day run of the play starring Charles Schick, Regina Bartkoff, Brandon Lim and Wayne Henry.^[5]

In April 2016, a month-long run was mounted at the Charing Cross Theatre, London. The production starred Linda Marlowe.^[6]