The oblique morality of Tennessee Williams

Last Friday, I saw three one act plays by Tennessee Williams. They were performed at an old mansion in the French Quarter here in New Orleans as part of the Tennessee Williams Festival. Each play, set in a hotel, was performed in a different room of the house. The rooms were small, and so there were times when the actors—never more than four and usually two—were moving about right next to you. It was an enlightening evening.

The plays are Green Eyes, The Traveling Companion and Mr. Paradise. It's not easy to find out much about them. They were published in 2005 and 2008 respectively by the estimable house, New Directions, in volumes of TW's one-acts.  It appears these plays were written much earlier, but, as I say, it's not easy, even on the Internet, to determine that.
                                                                        

In any case, Williams' themes abound in these short plays. As does the characteristic florid, pained way his characters speak, using words that often deflect the truth but that, in the end, do not deny it. You can see that most readily in Mr. Paradise, where the landlady of a rooming house in the French Quarter demands the rent from two washed-up residents. The first is an alcoholic woman who goes on about a rich man she knows who owns a rubber plantation in Brazil. The second is a seedy-looking, dirty-robe-wearing, gut-hanging older man named Anthony Paradise who, we later learn, is—or was— a poet. When the landlady starts attacking the woman, who is obviously lying about the rubber plantation and probably about everything else, Mr. Paradise rises to defend her. In a long speech, he says to the relentless landlady, suppose it's true that there is no rubber plantation, and suppose I don't have any novel I'm working on as I claim I am—suppose all of it's a lie—why must you crush this fabrication? What difference does it make what kind of subterfuge we choose to hide ourselves behind?

One of the things I admire most about Tennessee Williams and for what I'm most grateful, is his understanding of the obliqueness of morality. Yes, there is black and white sometimes. The greatest sin is deliberate cruelty, he said, and at times, there is a plain line between yes and no. But there is also the kind of lie that has nothing to do with cruelty and which only serves to help that person through the day, the hour, the minute. It's a scenario that protects him or her from the glare of that harsh uncovered light bulb and which preserves that most delicate thing—dignity—that should never be stripped from us.                                                                     

In A Streetcar Named Desire, when Mitch calls out Blanche for all the lies she told him about her past, she says, "Never inside! I never lied in my heart!"

Tennessee, let me have the courage to protect those who never lie in their heart.

Stars taking up collections, final curtain

I played A Young Collector in A Streetcar Named Desire forty-five years ago. When I did, I stepped into a complete world. In this short scene, I have come to collect for the newspaper, and Blanche Dubois, alone in the house, has not wanted me to leave. She's used several slim excuses for me to stay, but now, finally, I am about to leave.  I think.        

            Young Man:
Well, I'd better be going--
             Blanche [stopping him]:
Young man!
     [He turns. She takes a large gossamer scarf from the trunk and drapes it about 
     her shoulders.]
     [The young man clears his throat and looks yearningly at the door.]
 Young man! Young man! Young, young, young man! Has anyone ever told you that you look like a young Prince out of the Arabian Nights?
    [The Young Man laughs uncomfortably and stands like a bashful kid. Blanche speaks 
    softly to him.]
Well, you do, honey lamb! Come here. I want to kiss you, just once, softly and sweetly on your mouth!
    [Without waiting for him to accept, she crosses to him and presses her lips to his.]
Now run along, now, quickly! It would be nice to keep you, but I’ve got to be good--and keep my hands off children.
    [He stares as her for a moment. She opens the door for him and blows a kiss at him as 
    he goes down the steps with a dazed look.]

She kissed me. This older woman who was everything that was forbidden to me. Those lips!  Now, in a few minutes, everything in my life was changed. I didn't want to leave. I wanted to stay and I wanted her to kiss me again. I wanted to touch her dress and her face and I wanted her to teach me everything she knew and to talk to me while she did about how I looked like a young Prince. I was a Prince. I was not a Collector. Her kiss remained on my lips. I walked slowly away and then off the stage. But that mean nothing, the exit. Tennessee Williams' world stayed with me. I walked within it for for hours and hours. (And still do, in a way.) Blanche DuBois had commandeered my heart. I had to see her again. And, as luck would have it, I would, the next night, at eight o'clock.
                                                                         

Stars taking up collections

I played the role of A Young Collector in A Streetcar Named Desire forty-five years ago.  In this brief scene, I have come to collect for the New Orleans Evening Star, and Blanche DuBois, alone in the house at the time, does not want me to leave. I am no longer who I was. I am in this world, and I am a young man. Everything that happens is as it happens.

            Blanche:

Hey! [He turns back shyly.  She puts a cigarette in a long holder.]  Could you give me a light? [She crosses toward him. They meet at the door between the two rooms.]

            Young Man:

Sure. [He takes out a lighter.] This doesn’t always work.

            Blanche:

It’s temperamental?  [It flares.]  Ah!—thank you. [He starts away again.]  Hey! [He turns away again, still more uncertainly. She goes close to him.]  Uh—what time is it?

            Young Man:

Fifteen of seven, ma’am.

            Blanche:

So late?  Don’t you just love those long rainy afternoons in New Orleans when an hour isn’t just an hour—but a little piece of eternity dropped into your hands—and who knows what to do with it? [She touches his shoulders.]  You—uh—didn’t get wet in the rain?

            Young Man:

No, ma’am.  I stepped inside.
            Blanche:

In a drugstore?  And had a soda?

            Young Man:

Un-huh.

            Blanche:

Chocolate?

            Young Man:

No, ma’am. Cherry.

            Blanche [laughing]:

Cherry!

            Young Man:

A cherry soda.

            Blanche:

You make my mouth water. [She touches his cheek lightly, and smiles.]

I said that I was in another world then, a world as real, even more real than my everyday world. I was, and absolutely. It was all unfolding before me. The feeling of being with someone feral, who could have her way, but what was it? What did she want from me? She touched me once, on the shoulder. I could see her face so clearly, her smile. I could smell her perfume. Then she touched me on the cheek. I was at a complete loss. Was I supposed to stay? Could I?  And then....
                                                             

Stars taking up collections, con't.

I had a small part in A Streetcar Named Desire in a college production almost forty-five years ago. The impact of that experience was strong, and it was permanent.

I played the part of A Young Collector.

To set the scene:  Blanche has met Mitch and she (and we) see possibilities.  We've already had the poker game scene where Stanley, drunk, goes after Stella and she escapes upstairs.  Then the famous, STELLA! which brings her back to him. Now, Stella and Stanley have gone out, and Blanche is alone in the house, waiting for Mitch to arrive.

Enter me.  Or, rather, enter A Young Collector (who Williams refers to in the body of the script as the Young Man). I walk over to the door, ring the bell, and then....

Blanche:

Come in.
            [The Young Man appears through the portieres.  She regards him with interest.]

            Blanche:

Well, well!  What can I do for you?
            Young Man:

I’m collecting for The Evening Star.
            Blanche:

I didn’t know that stars took up collections.
            Young Man:

It’s the paper.

            Blanche:

I know.  I was joking—feebly!  Will you have—a drink?

            Young Man:

No, ma’am.  No, thank you.  I can’t drink on the job.

            Blanche:

Oh, well, now, let’s see….No, I don’t have a dime! I’m not the lady of the house.  I’m her sister from Mississippi.  I’m one of those poor relations you’ve heard about.

            Young Man:

That’s all right.  I’ll drop by later.  [He starts to go out.  She approaches a little.]

            Blanche:

Hey! [He turns back shyly.  She puts a cigarette in a long holder.]  Could you give me a light? [She crosses toward him. They meet at the door between the two rooms.]

I was listening to Blanche DuBois.  There were no actors.  There was no play.  I was a newsboy in New Orleans.  It was as if I'd walked through that liquid mirror into another world, but a real world, a three dimensional world that I belonged in. Everything about it was authentic.  And what was happening was as it happened in life.  It was real life--mine. I felt awkward and uneasy and thrown off balance by this woman.  She was beautiful and hypnotic.

What would she say next?                     

Stars taking up collections, curtain up

I have acted in one play and one only. That play was A Streetcar Named Desire.

Yes, I know.  I'd be perfect for Stanley.  Many many people have told me this.  Well, actually, none.   The year was 1969.  I was twenty-four.  This was when I was going to graduate school at Wayne State University in Detroit. A lot of my friends were theater majors, actors.  "You should try out for something," they said, noting my hammy tendencies.

So, I did.  I auditioned for the part of Stanley in Streetcar, as actors referred to it.  I got the part of A Young Collector.

I'm not even sure I'd read the play before.  When I did, I saw that the Young Collector (a teenage newsboy collecting for the local paper) was a small part, came in the middle of the play somewhere, and didn't seem to have much significance.  No many lines, maybe twenty-five.  The scene is between the Young Collector and Blanche DuBois.  When he comes to collect for The Evening Star, she pulls him into her world briefly. Then, exit.  

The part of Blanche was played by a suitably flamboyant, self-absorbed actress. I'd watch from the wings as she and Stanley went at it.  Exciting, raw stuff.  The play took shape, we had dress rehearsals, and all of a sudden it was opening night.

I was nervous, of course.  Felt silly in my Young Collector outfit in clothes that weren't mine.  Had all the known fears and some unknown.  I'd forget my lines.  I'd trip and fall.  You name it, I fretted over it.

Then: Time to go on.  I was given my cue, and, deep breath, I stepped out onto the stage.

And then the whole world changed.
                                        
                                                (To be continued)