Transcript: Selections from Tennessee Williams

Hi, this is Jim Nicola. I’m the Artistic Director of New York Theatre Workshop.

While we find ourselves right now in the digital space reaching far beyond the brick walls of our theatre on East 4th Street, our theater stands on the island of Manhattan. Manhattan has always been a gathering and trading place for many Indigenous people, where Nations intersected from all four directions since time immemorial. It was a place to gather and sometimes a place to seek refuge during times of conflict and struggle.

The artists, the staff and trustees of New York Theatre Workshop pay respect to all of their ancestors, the present members of those communities and to their future generations. We acknowledge that our theater, and its work, is situated on the island of Manhattan (Menohhannet – On the Island) traditional lands of the Munsee Lenape, the Canarsie, the Unkechaug, the Mainecock, the Shinnecock, the Reckgawanc and the Haudenosaunee Confederacy. We respect that many Indigenous people continue to live and work on this island and acknowledge their ongoing contributions to this area. We’d also like to thank Chief Harry Wallace, Kevin Tarrant, Muriel Borst-Tarrant and Safe Harbors New York City Indigenous Collective for helping us craft this statement.

HILTON ALS
Hello all, and welcome to our second presentation straight to you from New York Theatre Worship. My name is Hilton Als, and you might remember us from our previous production, “Portrait of Jason,” now available to you wherever you get podcasts.

It’s my very great pleasure to present to you a new program, courtesy of the genius of Tennessee Williams, specifically three scenes from three of his last plays, largely unheralded: 1969’s “In the Bar of a Tokyo Hotel,” 1979’s “The Red Devil Battery Sign,” and 1980’s “Clothes for a Summer Hotel.” In each, Williams evolves as a man and a writer, and in each, the playwright most known for his gallery of famous female characters–Amanda and Alma and Blanche and Maggie and Hannah–confronts new territory: his male self, specifically the male artist, and his relationship to women. Each of these scenes is a testament to Williams commitment to going on, I can’t go on, I’ll go on. Here’s the maestro in a 1974 interview with Dick Cavett.

DICK CAVETT
Have I ever asked you this, about how many times in your plays, somewhere, there’s a character who says, “You just have to go on.” Or some version of that — “you just have to survive”.

TENNESSEE WILLIAMS
Well, it certainly represents my own feeling about things. I find it pleasant to go on actually. I think if I found it too unpleasant to go on for too long a time, I’d stop.

DICK
I used to be able to name about five places in your plays where there was a version of that line. After Stanley rapes Blanche, and they’re taking those –

TENNESSEE
Oh, yes, yeah.

DICK
She says to her her sister…

TENNESSEE
Eunice says “You just got to on on”

DICK
You just gotta go on, and there’s a place in Summer and Smoke and there’s a similar line in Cat and I wondered if you were aware —

TENNESSEE
I wasn’t aware. I think that much of my life has been difficult to continue with, but I’ve always wanted to continue with it

DICK
And finally you’re writing your autobiography.

HILTON
And it’s in that spirit that we present to you these scenes featuring three male artists going on, in dialogue with love and work.

The television knob being turned again, static interspersed with ads, then the sharp sound of a Japanese samisen being plucked.

HILTON
From 1969’s “In the Bar of a Tokyo Hotel.” The place: Tokyo.

Cocktail shaker, ambient bar sounds, clink of metal.

MIRIAM
I like this room.

BARMAN
Thank you.

MIRIAM
There is an atmosphere of such vitality in Tokyo.

BARMAN
Thank you.

MIRIAM
You understand and speak English remarkably well.

BARMAN
Thank you.

MIRIAM
You have a very impressive suicide rate.

BARMAN
Thank you.

MIRIAM
I don’t think you understood what I said.

BARMAN
I was.

MIRIAM
I said that you have a very impressive rate of suicide in—

BARMAN
In America there is no suicide rate?

MIRIAM
In America what we have is an explosion of vitality which is worldwide.

BARMAN
Many cowboys exported?

MIRIAM
Ha-ha, yes, it could be put that way. “Many cowboys exported!” Yes, but speaking for myself, I don’t really need an atmosphere of vitality around me.

BARMAN
You have enough in yourself?

MIRIAM
Let’s say that I have enough and a little more than enough.

BARMAN
–I am not astonished.

MIRIAM
Hmmm. How many hours of sleep do you need a night?

BARMAN
Thank you for being interested, but why are you interested?

MIRIAM
I’m always interested. For me, only four hours of sleep are necessary.

BARMAN
You waken in the dark?

MIRIAM
Not usually. You see, I go to bed late.

BARMAN
You make excursions at night?

MIRIAM
Yes, I’m restless at night. What’s your name?

BARMAN
I am the Barman.

MIRIAM
Yes, I’ve noticed you are. Why don’t you look for an occupation that’s not so confining?

BARMAN
Thank you.

MIRIAM
You’re welcome. See what I’m doing? I’m taking out of my handbag a mirror.

BARMAN
Why are you staring at me?

MIRIAM
I like to see what is going on about me in the circle of light.

BARMAN
Excuse me while I –

He carries a tray of drinks offstage.

MIRIAM
Yes. The best idea. Cable to Leonard.  Place in his hands. Hmmm. Your activity with the shaker is very distracting.

BARMAN
Pardon me. I am the Barman.

MIRIAM
“Inner resources of serenity.” Some professor mentioned them to me once. Hog-wash, wash a hog in it, don’t turn it on me. “Inner resources of serenity” is a polite way of describing a lack of vital energy. There may be exceptions but.

BARMAN
The light from the mirror is in my eyes.

MIRIAM
For light in your eyes be grateful. I am happy to lower of the focus of the — don’t stand behind the bar.

BARMAN
My instruction is.

MIRIAM
Your employer wouldn’t object if you stood in front of the bar. 

BARMAN
–The light from the mirror burns through my clothes.

MIRIAM
Are you sure it isn’t my observation of you?

BARMAN
I am.

MIRIAM
You are.  So am I.  Will you please bring me some ice for my drink?

BARMAN
With pleasure and precaution and a little delay.

MIRIAM
Hmmm.

BARMAN
There is a party of diplomats in the restaurant, excuse me please.

MIRIAM
I will excuse you if you don’t stay long. Hmm. Difficult, yes, but unobtainable, no.  –A little Panama Red.

(A cigarette lighter strikes)

Hmmm. Diplomats. Young?

BARMAN
Venerable.

MIRIAM
I haven’t heard that word in a long long time.

BARMAN
Perhaps there are a number of words in English, not idiomatic, that it would not be useless for you to —

MIRIAM
I like the idioms of my native country.

BARMAN
You are smoking a pipe of marijuana.

MIRIAM
A pipe of Panama Red.

BARMAN
The pleasure of a guest is usually my pleasure, but will you do for me the kindness?

MIRIAM
I will put it out for you.  Put it out means extinguish.

BARMAN
Thank you.

MIRIAM
Panama Red is not essential to my —

BARMAN
Vitalitity. Natural to your nature.

MIRIAM
Hmmmm. No. I don’t say it doesn’t augment it, but it —

BARMAN
Thank you.

MIRIAM
I will teach you the idioms of English. Some of them centuries old. Venerable.  The important idioms can be learned very —

BARMAN
Not necessary, but thank you.

MIRIAM
Are you married?

BARMAN
I am engaged. And faithful.

MIRIAM
A terrible mistake.  For marriage, some preliminary instruction is necessary.

BARMAN
Thank you. I have had the necessary instruction.

MIRIAM
There are fairly good instructors and there are brilliant instructors.

BARMAN
It is kind of you to be interested in my instruction.

From time to time a wind sweeps through the bar.  Ornamented glass pendants—suspended from the arch of a door leading offstage—chatter musically when the wind blows through. Each time the pendants sound, Miriam touches the feathers on her hat and makes her humming sound, then rearranges the bracelets on her arms and moves her head from side to side more noticeably. Now the Barman returns.

MIRIAM
I have noticed a lot of very stout women in the hotel, their doors open on the corridors.  They sit on the edge of their beds, doing nothing at all.

BARMAN
Ladies from Hawaii.

MIRIAM
Just sitting. No energy in them to get up and be on the go?

BARMAN
The ladies are a party of —

MIRIAM
Not enough vitality for an argument, or even a conversation.

BARMAN
Nice ladies from Hawaii.

MIRIAM
I didn’t say they weren’t nice.  Being nice or not nice is — What I said about the Hawaiian ladies is that they should be up and about. They should be on the move.  Did their husbands suggest this trip to Japan to them?

BARMAN
I think their husbands are satisfied with the —

MIRIAM
Perhaps in Hawaii a very fat wife is what we call in America, a status symbol.

BARMAN
That is nothing I know.

MIRIAM
My God, one of them off her bed, it must have collapsed so she had to get on the move.  Probably has no idea of where she’s headed. Where I’m headed is something I always know.

BARMAN
Japan has other places.

MIRIAM
I’ve been told that I shouldn’t miss Kyoto.  The person, the acquaintance, the man that mentioned Kyoto to me said that Kyoto is a place of lovely old pagodas and flowering trees in flower at this time of —

BARMAN
Yes, go to Kyoto.

MIRIAM
Yes, I’ll go to Kyoto on an evening train.  I love the clackety-clack of the wheels and the cool wind through the windows.  I hope there’s a train leaving at —

BARMAN
The concierge can give you the schedules.

MIRIAM
I’ll go this evening.

BARMAN
It is possible to go more early.

MIRIAM
I prefer an evening train. Kyoto.  To absorb Kyoto wouldn’t take me long.  A woman of my vitality absorbs a place quickly.  I could absorb a pagoda in a minute.  Well, if I walked around it, a few minutes more.  That sounds as if I meant superficial absorption, but.

BARMAN
Some of the pagodas are five or six hundred years old.

MIRIAM
Venerable, but I’d absorb them, well, at the most in five minutes.  I look. I absorb. I go on.

BARMAN
Your method of absorption is not a reverent absorption.

MIRIAM
An adequate absorption.

BARMAN
You may think so, but.

MIRIAM
Reverence is a thing I am happy to leave in the hands of the reverent.

BARMAN
Will your husband go with you?

MIRIAM
No. It would take him an hour to absorb a pagoda.

BARMAN
Some that go to Kyoto sit before a pagoda all day and then all night. Reverence.

MIRIAM
Or pretension.  –Has a woman ever held you with?

BARMAN
In our country the man prefers to hold our delicate ladies.

MIRIAM
Delicate ladies like dolls.

BARMAN
Delicate ladies with delicate manners and gestures.

MIRIAM
The venerable diplomats are going to fall under their tables.

BARMAN
Not unless there is a tremor, a quake of the earth caused by an explosion of vitality which is world-wide.

MIRIAM
Ha! That boy moves well, yes, he knows how to move.  I’m sorry he has a position that ties him down.  Otherwise I’d not be going to Kyoto alone.  Oh, well. I’ll not be lonely.  I know the word for hello.

At a country club dance on Long Island—oh, I’m popular on Long Island! – I was dancing with this attractive but inexperienced-looking young man—and I whispered in his ear: “Do you mind if I manipulate your genitals?” – Scared him out of — He said “Here?” as if he was in church. I said, “I’ll step out for some air and you follow me out.” Did he? –Hmmm.  –You bet he did! –And I manipulated his genitals all right.  –HMMM.  –Yaisses! –Between a Cadillac and a—hmm—Cadillac.  –Sure, we got into one.  –Burrghh.  –Recollections are insufficient.  I like present action.

 Barman.  You, Barman!

(A whistle blows shrilly.)

I use this to catch the attention of a cab when I’m in New York.

BARMAN
What is?  Did you say–?

MIRIAM
Cab.  A public conveyance.

BARMAN
I am not a public convenience.  I do not respond to whistles.

MIRIAM
I would like you to get me a cablegram blank from the concierge with the unfortunate face.

BARMAN
I will get you a cablegram and place it on the green table.

(Footsteps.)

Pardon me.  You are instructing my way.

MIRIAM
Do you mean obstructing?

BARMAN
Thank you. I mean obstructing.  To deliver the cablegrams to you, I must request that you return to your table.

MIRIAM
If I return to my table, will you bring the cablegram to me?

BARMAN
I will place it in reach of.

MIRIAM
You must place it on my table.

BARMAN
I will place the cablegram where you can reach it—You are still obstructing my way.

(Footsteps.)

MIRIAM
He won that little encounter, but you can lose a lot of preliminary encounters and still wind up as — He’s put a book of cablegrams on that other.  Barman, I asked for a cablegram and you’ve brought me a whole book of them.

BARMAN
Is that enough, or do you want several books?

MIRIAM
You thought I was going to send cables all over the world? [Laughs boisterously] –Oh. Could you give me a pencil?

BARMAN
Only one pencil?

MIRIAM
Only one pencil will do at the present moment.

(Writing)

Mr. Leonard Frisbie.  World Galleries.  New York.  Dear Leonard.  I’m sorry to tell you that Mark has suffered a total collapse of the nervous system.  Hmmm.  Mental and physical, too. With most situations I am able to cope but not this one. I mean not alone.  Mark is your most lucrative property.  Please fly to Tokyo at once to protect it.  Otherwise I will be forced to. Hmmm.  Unless you arrive as quickly as.  With love as ever and with desperate appeal.  Miriam Conley.  There, now.  That should do it.  Young man? Give the cablegram to the concierge.  It has to go out at once.

BARMAN
I am instructed to stay in my position at the bar at this time of —

MIRIAM
Disregard your instructions.  I will give you two hundred yen to take the cablegram to the concierge and tell him it has to go out immediately.

BARMAN
–Put the cablegram on another table and I will pick it up.

MIRIAM
You’re afraid to come to my table?

BARMAN
When I come to your table you place your hand improperly on my body.

MIRIAM
Ha! Look. The two hundred yen.

BARMAN
Place the cablegram on another table and —

MIRIAM
The cablegram stays here.

BARMAN
Then you must take it to the concierge.

MIRIAM
A pagan idol with the propriety of — Another two hundred yen. You have to remove that cablegram from the table or there’s no deal.

BARMAN
Throw it at me, please, with the four hundred yen.

MIRIAM
I’ll be damned if I will.  You come to the table and take the cablegram off it and the four hundred yen.

He comes to the table.  She immediately places her hand on his crotch.

Stay a while. You have no real objection.

BARMAN
—It’s

MIRIAM
What?

BARMAN
In Tokyo women bathe us.

MIRIAM
An interesting, a very intriguing idea. When do you want a bath?

BARMAN
I have had my bath.  Without indecency.

MIRIAM
But you stay by the table.

BARMAN
Four hundred yen is a large sum for delivering a cablegram to the concierge and your hand is —

MIRIAM
The hand of a woman who burns.

BARMAN
Yes.

MIRIAM
Here is the cablegram and the four hundred yen.   Tense.  Irritable nerve ends.  Convex demanding concave.

What’s the matter?

BARMAN
I forgot the direction.

MIRIAM
I’m fully aware, of course, that there’s no magical trick to defend me indefinitely from the hideous product of calendars, clocks, watches.  However I’ve made a covenant with them. When, on the unexpected but always possible advent of incurable illness

She removes a tiny pillbox from her bag.

–a Regency snuffbox; innocent-looking.  It contains one pill, just one but that one is enough.  When then.  I will carry it into a grove of afternoon trees.  Swallow the.  And in a single, immeasurable moment—

(Footsteps)

Did you?

BARMAN
The cablegram is.

MIRIAM
Thank you. I hope the evening train leaves before the light fades away.

The woman’s husband enters. There are vivid paint stains on his unpressed suit.

MARK
No chair for me at the table.

MIRIAM
You weren’t expected.

He attempts to draw a chair to the table but stumbles to his knees, then staggers up.

MARK
[Guffaws] Too soon after work.

MIRIAM
Much.

MARK
I was afraid you’d —

MIRIAM
I wasn’t waiting for you.

MARK
I’m glad I came down in time.

MIRIAM
Time for what?

MARK
To catch you.

MIRIAM
I can’t be caught.

MARK
Barman, yes, please.

MIRIAM
Infantile dependence.

MARK
The work is —

MIRIAM
I’m not going to discuss it.  You’re leaning on the table for support, crouched over it.

MARK
It’s always been exhausting to —

MIRIAM
The manager of the hotel has complained of the paint stains on the floor of your room.

MARK
I covered the floor with several sheets of newspaper before I —

MIRIAM
The paint from the spray guns obviously goes through them.

MARK
If there are stains, I scrub them out with turpentine.

MIRIAM
Not well enough, it seems.

MARK
If I damage the floor of the room, I’ll pay for a new one.

MIRIAM
Why not rent a loft to work in?

MARK
Where?

MIRIAM
Somewhere.  A loft that has a window.

MARK
The time getting to a loft.

MIRIAM
Yes?

MARK
Would probably be too long to hold an image.

MIRIAM
The image of your new work must be extremely —

MARK
No, not at all. They’re so vivid they —

MIRIAM
You could hire a car with a chauffeur and a siren to —

MARK
Miriam, don’t ridicule the—To doubt is necessary…

The Barman places a cocktail before Mark. His hand is too tremulous to lift the glass to his mouth.  

MIRIAM
If you can’t lift the glass, put the hand not holding it under the elbow of — Oh, too late, now, you’ve spilled it. 

Mr. Conley is —

BARMAN
I see. I know.

MIRIAM
Mix another for him, I’ll pour it down him.  His hands are —

BARMAN
Nerveless a little.

MARK
I’ve always been excited by work.  But this time the excitement and the tension are.

MIRIAM
Don’t touch it.  I’ll lift it to your mouth. Your teeth are chattering—More?

MARK
Yes, all of it, please.

MIRIAM
Don’t bite the glass.  Open your mouth wider.  Now.

(He chokes a little.)

That’s all of it.

MARK
Thanks. I’d better have another.

BARMAN
There is another in the shaker.

MIRIAM
I’d better lift this one, too. Now.  Mouth open wide.  I said wide.  If you’re not the man in the side show that swallows glass.  This is —

MARK
Ridiculous of me.

BARMAN
Nerveless.

MARK
It’s hard to come downstairs immediately after work.

MIRIAM
Yes.  Apparently so.

MARK
Do you know how I — [laughs] move in my room?

MIRIAM
I think it’s difficult for you to move anywhere.

MARK
I catch hold of a chair.  I catch hold of the bureau.  I catch hold of —

MIRIAM
How do you get to the elevator?

MARK
By.  [laughs breathlessly] By leaning onto the wall.  Stumbling along it.

MIRIAM
Would you go to a doctor if I found one for you?

MARK
All I could tell him is that the tension of my work.

MIRIAM
He might want to test your reflexes.

MARK
For the first time, nothing that sep — sep!

MIRIAM
Are you trying to say separates?

MARK
Yes, separates, holds at some dis—!

MIRIAM
To translate your incoherence, holds at some distance, is that it?

MARK
You understand what I’m trying to say.

MIRIAM
Maybe that, yes, but not what you’re doing.  Don’t touch me with those stained fingers.  Don’t crouch and lean forward, try to sit straight in the chair.  When I looked in your room and saw you crawling naked over a huge nailed-down canvas, I thought, “My God, it’s time for the — .”

MARK
I’ve understood the intimacy that should, that has to exist between the, the—painter and the—I! It! Now it turned to me, or I turned to it, no division between us at all any more! The one-ness, the, the—!

MIRIAM
Are you hysterical? I’ll get the bell captain to get you a tape recorder to preserve your delirious ravings.  Play them back to yourself and you might be as shocked as I am by the—

MARK
Images in!

MIRIAM
Recorded.

MARK
There was always a sense of division till- Gone! Now absolute one-ness with —!

MIRIAM
You’re shaking the table so that I have to grip the other side of it to keep it from—.

MARK
If I said that I’m.

MIRIAM
What?

MARK
Actually terrified of —.  Would you believe me?

MIRIAM
I have no reason to doubt it.

MARK
Excited, yes, wildly, but terrified  at the same time, I —.

MIRIAM
Mark.

MARK
This work is hard to confine to —.

MIRIAM
Wants to run out, does it?

MARK
Always before I felt controllable limits, I —.

MIRIAM
Shaking, unbathed, unshaved, blotches of paint in your hair.  Look at yourself in this mirror if you’re not blind.

She holds her large mirror but he stares above it at her.

Yes. Blind.

MIRIAM
Mark, fly back and —.

MARK
Sometimes the interruption of work, especially in a new style, causes a, causes a—loss of momentum that’s never recovered! If I, you’d fly back with me? Naturally you’d.

MIRIAM
No, Mark, I wouldn’t.

MARK
You want me to?

MIRIAM
Deliver yourself to the loving care of your Aunt Grace who dotes on human catastrophes.  I’ve never been around her more than two minutes before she says, “Oh, do you know that so-and-so passed away or has had his spinal column removed.” And of course you’d have Leonard’s unlimited understanding.  They’d meet you at the airport.  They’d see your condition.  It’s their problem from there.  I won’t let it be mine.

MARK
Miriam, you don’t mean you want me to fly back alone.

MIRIAM
No, not alone, with a nurse, and under heavy sedation, an oxygen mask, the whole bit, you wouldn’t even be conscious that you were.

MARK
I can’t interrupt my work here before I’ve controlled it.

MIRIAM
Mark, to be honest with you, the canvasses that I was privileged to look at.

MARK
Prematurely.

MIRIAM
Were circus-colored mudpies.

MARK
That was in the beginning.

MIRIAM
Recently.

MARK
I feel as if I were crossing the frontier of a country I have no permission to enter, but I enter, this, this! I tell you, it terrifies me! Now! In the beginning.

MIRIAM
Let it rest.  At least, don’t inflict the —  Mark, it’s not too late for surroundings familiar to you.  Fifteen acres of pacifying green meadows.

MARK
The drink was a mistake. Excuse me a moment.

MIRIAM
Indefinitely.

MARK
While I stick a finger down my throat.

MIRIAM
Yes. Well. Gone. This Goddam flower disturbs me.  I can’t stand it on the table.  –Young man? Barman?

BARMAN
What is it?

MIRIAM
This flower on the table, will you please remove it?

BARMAN
Why?

MIRIAM
I don’t like objects that disguise their true nature, and there is nothing on earth that disguises its true nature more cunningly than a flower, even when cut and stuck in a vase in a bar.

BARMAN
If I have understood you, what is the true nature of?

MIRIAM
Rapacious.  You know that word?

BARMAN
I think you have taught me that word.

MIRIAM
Maybe a stronger word is ravenous.

BARMAN
Do you mean you are a flower?

MIRIAM
You know what I am.

BARMAN
I have had—am I speaking correctly?

MIRIAM
Yes. Continue.  Go on with —

BARMAN
On our island which is too small for its habitations?

MIRIAM
Inhabitants.

BARMAN
Thank you. We prefer flowers to —

MIRIAM
You had an idiomatic expression in your mind.

BARMAN
I believe the word is ancient and universal.

MIRIAM
(picking up the flower)
Here.  Not wanted.

BARMAN
Oh?

MIRIAM
No.

BARMAN
I have been instructed to be sure that a vase containing a flower is on each table. The purple flower on the red table is —.

MIRIAM
Not wanted by a hotel guest in the bar.

BARMAN
Before your trip to Kyoto, you might, may, would enjoy a long stroll about the garden of the hotel.

MIRIAM
There is something you “might, may, would” enjoy, too.

BARMAN
Thank you. No. Madam Flower.

(Footsteps.) 

MIRIAM
Crock.

Mark staggers back to the table. 

I’ll get a bellboy to help you back to your room.

MARK
No, no, no. I’m afraid to go in it again.

MIRIAM
Then go in my room. Here’s my key.  Throw that fantastically decorated suit out the window, take a shower, have the bellboy bring you a clean suit, if you have one, and.

MARK
When I say that I’m terrified of the new canvasses, you think I’m exaggerating.

MIRIAM
Not at all in the least.

MARK
No separation between myself and —

MIRIAM
Don’t keep repeating it to me.  Saying a thing once to me is enough, you know.  Sometimes a thing doesn’t even have to be said to me. I’m able to guess it.

MARK
It’s something that —

MIRIAM
I said “Don’t discuss it.” Not outside the office of a —

MARK
In the beginning, a new style of work can be stronger than you, but you learn to control it.  It has to be controlled.  You learn to control it.

MIRIAM
Fly back immediately.

MARK
I always suspected that tigers were hiding in —

MIRIAM
It’s not a question of whether you want to or not, it’s something you’ve got to face as something that’s —

MARK
Fly back?

MIRIAM
Yes. Imperative. At once. I’ve suggested to you, I’ve urged you to follow, the — More? I can’t do more.  Yes, I could do more.  I could have you put in a sanitarium here.  I could, and I will if you force me. I’m right.  Barman, a —

MARK
Yes. One for me, too.

MIRIAM
Mr. Conley will have a Coca-Cola.  For God’s sake, Mark, you must have noticed your loss of balance.  Why your stumbling into things is —  And you admit how you move around in your room.

MARK
An artist has to lay his life on the line.

MIRIAM
Once I dreamed that the shy, gifted man that you were would lift me above the trivialities in my life.  I took the initiative and didn’t mind taking it. Mark, I said, why don’t we go somewhere together, married or not married.

MARK
A friend of yours loaned you.

MIRIAM
His yacht.  The shy, gifted man said the bunks are too narrow for two.  I’ll take the upper, good night.  Hell.  OK. I mounted the ladder to the upper bunk, and I lay on the body of a secret vendor of silk.

MARK
You were remarkably skilled in overcoming timidity.

MIRIAM
Had to be or no show.

MARK
Afterwards we went up on the deck and I pointed out to you.

MIRIAM
Stars and constellations.  You could name them.  Oh and the northern lights that night they made a crackling sound like giant white sheets being shaken out in the sky.

MARK
While I fondled your breasts, as I still desperately long to —

MIRIAM
Mark, your hands are —

MARK
I know, I know—I know.

MIRIAM
Your condition has to be diagnosed by a good neuropathologist, soon as — Immediately.

MARK
Miriam, I swear it’s the intensity of — . Why did you say a neuropathologist?

MIRIAM
I had an uncle that had a brain tumor and the symptoms were identical.

MARK
I’m not going to interrupt any —

MIRIAM
Well, take a loft with a window.

MARK
The images flash in my brain, and I have to get them on nailed-down canvas at once or they —

MIRIAM
Flash back out of your brain.  A neuropathologist would be interested in that.  I’m not a neuropathologist and I’m not concerned with a thing about this thing but flying you into the care of —

MARK
There’s a feeling of, a sense of —

MIRIAM
You won’t shut up about it.

MARK
Of, of —

MIRIAM
Stop it.

MARK
Adventuring into a jungle country with wild men crouching in bushes, in in, in—trees, with poison arrows to —

MIRIAM
Yes, to kill you, and they’ve nearly done it.

MARK
Color.

MIRIAM
That’s right. Color.  On your suit, your hands, even in your hair.

MARK
I didn’t know it till now.  Color, color and light! Before us and after us, too.  What I’m saying is—color isn’t passive, it, it—has a fierce life in it!

MIRIAM
This sort of talk isn’t suitable to a public room in a —

MARK
The possibilities of color and light, discovered all at once, can make a man fall on the street. I’ve heard that finally on earth there’ll be nothing but gigantic insects but now I know the last things, the imperishable things, are color and light.  Finished.  No more about it.  I won’t fly back to New York with a nurse under heavy sedation.

MIRIAM
I could have you committed to a —

MARK
It wouldn’t be the first time you’ve tried to put me away, without —

MIRIAM
Without what?

MARK
Without considering the —

MIRAM
What?

MARK
The consequences.  I could never stand confinement.

MIRIAM
When a person needs help.

MARK
Let’s make a bargain, Miriam.  You fly back with me.  And we’ll go to Long Island and I’ll, I’ll—I’ll take the chance of the interruption.

MIRIAM
Oh, no, that’s no acceptable bargain.

MARK
What was it, the work I’ve done but a preparation for —

MIRIAM
If you take a shower, odious as a shower’s become to you lately, you can sleep off your exhaustion in the twin bed by the door in my room.

BARMAN
Mr. Conley is nerveless.

MIRIAM
You keep saying nerveless for nervous.

BARMAN
Pardon, please.

MIRIAM
While you were sticking a finger down your throat, there was a controversy between me and that impertinent Barman.

MARK
Over?

MIRIAM
Over the flower on the table.  Do you think you could remove the flower and vase and explain to the Barman, who seems to understand you better than he does me, that I will not share a small table with that purple flower.

MARK
–Yes, of course, but I —

MIRIAM
You know how some objects, for no expana, explisa.

MARK
–Yes. I’ll simply put it on the bar and say that my wife hates flowers.

MIRIAM
Say that you hate them too.

Mark crosses toward the bar and falls to his knees before it.

BARMAN
Did you injure yourself, Mr. Conley?

MARK
I—hate flowers.

BARMAN
I don’t think it is you. Let me help you to —

MARK
Thank you, yes, please.

BARMAN
A beautiful flower has to be on each table.

MARK
Please help me back to the table, and explain to my wife.

(Footsteps.) 

MIRIAM
Flower, you’re cut and you’ll die.  The sentence of death is imposed on you, purple flower.  Yesterday, on the Ginza, I ran into an old schoolmate from Silver Hall, Elaine.  We’re lunching together and she said strictly no husbands.  I think she wants to discuss what’s called a marital problem.

MARK
When? How much time is —?

MIRIAM
I said that she said no husbands.

MARK
I could sit at a different table till the discussion of the marriage problem is —.

MIRIAM
Even if I weren’t having lunch with Elaine I wouldn’t with you today.

MARK
I have an immaculately clean summer suit.

MIRIAM
It would do nothing for your disequilibrium on the —.

MARK
After a quick, cold shower, I —.

MIRIAM
You don’t hear what I say.  It’s useless talking to you.

MARK
The loss of balance comes from the —.

MIRIAM
I said that she said that — .

MARK
I can’t be left alone now.  I have a clean summer suit and after a cold shower, I —.

MIRIAM
For God’s sake, can’t I be allowed some freedom of —?

MARK
Yes, of course. It’s only that —.

MIRIAM
Tyrannical dependence.

MARK
I’m sorry. It’s all right. It’s just that —.

MIRIAM
If you need a hired companion.  You’re sitting on my coat.  Barman, call me a cab.

MARK
I’ll have a little lunch here. Or maybe I would be able to sleep awhile in your room.

MIRIAM
Visit the galleries of Tokyo.  The concierge can engage an art student to guide you.  Did you call me a cab?

BARMAN
There are cabs waiting outside the door.

MARK
Your friend would understand, if —.

MIRIAM
She said as I said strictly no husbands, meaning none in any condition. –What?

(Wind chimes)

MARK
I’ve always approached my work with a feeling of a frightened timidity because the possibilities are —

MIRIAM
You are making an effort to explain a mystery that I —

MARK
The possibilities of a canvas that presents itself for —

MIRIAM
The assault of a madman.  You’re destroying —

MARK
I suppose I might say it’s —

MIRIAM
Crock.

MARK
Adventure.

MARK
I’ll —

MIRIAM
You’ll stay here with your work.

MARK
–It could be a fantasy that I’m —

MIRIAM
Shattering a frontier?

MARK
In my room is a suit I’ve never worn.  A shower takes me two minutes.  I’ll be down in five.

MIRIAM
I won’t be seen today with a man that —

MARK
I’ve always felt that.  After the work, so little is left of me.  To give to another person.

MIRIAM
Mark.

MARK
Miriam.

MIRIAM
Go back to the States.  Enter a —.  Consult a —.  As your wife, I —.

MARK
I can’t interrupt the —.

MIRIAM
I have clipped flowers outside your studio and heard you talk to your work as if you were talking to another person in the studio with you.

MARK
No. To myself.

MIRIAM
And I was clipping flowers.  It’s natural that I felt a little excluded, but I never spoke of it, did I?

MARK
The work of a painter is lonely.

MIRIAM
So is clipping flowers.  I’m afraid that loneliness has a become a worn-out thing to discuss.

MARK
When I heard you clipping flowers outside my studio, it would sometimes occur to me that you wished the flowers you were clipping were my —.

MIRIAM
What’s become of the man that —?

MARK
What’s become of the woman that —?

MIRIAM
I’m usually tolerant of men that are unknown to me, but you’ve become one.

MARK
The constant unbearable of — .

MIRIAM
Mine!

MARK
Mine! – Did you really think I was sleeping night after Goddam night when you slipped out of your bed and threw on a coat over you? Did you think I didn’t hear you starting your car that you never put in the garage but left in front of the house? How many kinds of a fool do you take me for? Every? ALL? And near daybreak, did you think I didn’t hear you coming back? Sometimes the hanger dropping in the closet? Your slipping demurely back into your bed, your — your —satisfied sighs of —?

MIRIAM
Assuming.

MARK
Knowing!

MIRIAM
Assuming—

MARK
I said knowing, and you know that I knew!

MIRIAM
You never—

MARK
Spoke of it to you? No!

MIRIAM
–Why?

MARK
I said to myself—

MIRIAM
What did you say to yourself? Something or nothing?

MARK
She offers the compliment to me of waiting until she thinks that I’m asleep.

(Wind chimes.) 

MIRIAM
—Are we two people, Mark, or are we—

MARK
Stop there!

MIRIAM
Two sides of —!

MARK
Stop!

MIRIAM
One! An artist inhabiting the body of a compulsive—

MARK
Bitch!

MIRIAM
Call me that, but remember that you’re denouncing a side of yourself, denied by you! And remember this, too.  You’d enter my bed at daybreak, and tired as I was, I never refused myself to you.  The vendor of silk, that was secret! I probably knew that he knew!

MARK
Give me five minutes, all I need, to look proper for this occasion.

MIRIAM
None, not one.

MARK
Go on, you cunt, to this, this—lunch with a gentleman named Elaine.  I’m sure you’ll be on time.  You won’t keep him waiting, this gentleman named Elaine with his marital difficulties.  You’ll give him invaluable counsel.  And I, as for me, the man that you married is still a living man with no broken bones, and if later on I feel hungry, I’ll have lunch alone, but not in my room with canvasses demanding what I can’t give them yet, no, but as for flying back, we’ll fly back together, or —.

(Footsteps receding.)

BARMAN
–Mr. Conley, do you want to be assisted to your room?

MARK
I think that I will stay here till my wife returns from — .

(Strains of a Japanese samisen, then sound of a dial being turned to static, then to some ads, more static, and then slow, measured mariachi music begins.

 

Hilton

From 1975’s “The Red Devil Battery Sign” by Tennessee Williams. The setting: Houston, Texas.

(A sip, then ice cubes being added, and another sip. The drink is put down, footsteps and the radio is turned off.)

WOMAN DOWNTOWN
I suppose you think I’ve gone crazy down there, isn’t that what you think?

Lock that hall door, bolt it, I think they called their “doctor”! — That elevator hasn’t gone down, I haven’t heard the elevator door close! Did you notice the young man with close-cropped hair who came all the way up here, carefully ignoring my pretense of being unable to stand unsupported? Would you, while I get some glasses out of the little ice-chest, slip quietly into the corridor and see if he’s hanging around still.

KING
Aw, him, he asked my name as we come up here.

WOMAN DOWNTOWN
Didn’t give it, did you?

KING
Naw, naw, if a guy has a friendly attitude and he asked my name or he’s got some reason to ask, like I was witness to a car crash, I’ll give my name, but —

WOMAN DOWNTOWN
Quick, please check the corridor for Crewcut who dogs my steps, every step I take outside this Penthouse B! Quickly, quietly. Don’t be alarmed, I’m not demented.

KING
Estate, estate quieta – un momento.

(Footsteps, a door opening.)

Tienes razón.

WOMAN DOWNTOWN
Out there, was he?

KING
Leanin’ against wall, scribbling in a notebook. He snapped it shut when he seen me, give me a hard look and got in the elevator.

WOMAN DOWNTOWN
And at last I hear its descent with him in it, I trust.

KING
So why don’t you sit down and catch your breath in this chair?

WOMAN DOWNTOWN
Chair?

KING
I put it right here for you.

WOMAN DOWNTOWN
Ah…thoughtful, but when I’m disturbed, I have to stay on my feet and keep occupied with — ice bucket, drinks?

KING
Leave that to me, you sit down before you —

WOMAN DOWNTOWN
Fall down?

KING
In that beautiful dress.

WOMAN DOWNTOWN
This iridescent sheath of goldfish color was given me by General Susang’s wife. Some tyrants have exquisite tastes in fabrics. The gift has some very unpleasant associations, but you can’t blame a gift for the giver’s moral corruption and everything else was packed for departure if any means of escape presented itself, refuge in the country estate of my guardian.

Jailkeeper Griffin downstairs just informed me my guardian’s been hospitalized since the night he delivered me here. Shattered what’s left of my nerves. God! Did you think I’d flipped out in the lounge?

KING
What I think or don’t think, does it matter?

WOMAN DOWNTOWN
Yes. Very much.

KING
Why?

WOMAN DOWNTOWN
You are actually the only person I’ve encountered at the — Paradise— Rose? — who strikes me as being a person I could appeal to for assistance, now that —

KING
This hotel. What was that y’called it?

WOMAN DOWNTOWN
I hope you put that word “hotel” in quotes.

KING
In?

WOMAN DOWNTOWN
Quotes — sorry. I keep forgetting your native language is Spanish. You’re Mexican, aren’t you?

KING
Don’t let that scare you. Some people, y’know, they think all Mexicans are criminals like, like rapists, y’know, like — rapists.

WOMAN DOWNTOWN
Ridiculous — misapprehension.

KING
I was born close to the border, but I’m a Texan. —My mother told me my father was a gringo, but his name was Spanish —Del Rey. —Oh, I brought your coat and bag up.

WOMAN DOWNTOWN
Gracias.

KING
You better check the bag to make sure the cash is still in it.

WOMAN DOWNTOWN
There was nothing much in it but money.

KING
And money means nothing to you.

WOMAN DOWNTOWN
Nothing compared to some documents which I—

Didn’t you say you were going to serve as bartender at the little bar? A Margarita? Or a Tequila Sunrise?

KING
For me — the limit is beer.

WOMAN DOWNTOWN
I think you mean I was loaded in the lounge.

KING
I didn’t say you was. I, I—got no— opinion.

WOMAN DOWNTOWN
My drink was loaded, I wasn’t.

KING
Y’say your drinks was loaded. By Charlie the barman?

WOMAN DOWNTOWN
Who else mixes drinks down there but Fatso at the bar: Charlie the barman is he? —Let me remove the luggage from the bed. I mean, would you? I’m still in a shocked condition. The news about my guardian, Judge Collister’s very suspiciously sudden hospitalization and on the critical list at — New Meadows—New—Medical—

KING
I got the luggage off. You rest on the bed.

WOMAN DOWNTOWN
Oh Lord, how I do long to! It wouldn’t embarrass you if I—you wouldn’t misinterpret it as a—provocation?

KING
No, I — don’t — take advantage of — ladies…

A suitcase falls from KING’s nervous fingers. The contents spill. Delicate lingerie, a leopard-skin coat, an ermine jacket, some photocopied papers.

Perdóname, one arm, one hand, the fingers still don’t operate right, I —

The WOMAN DOWNTOWN snatches up the papers.

 —specially when I’m-Did, did — anything break?

WOMAN DOWNTOWN
Papers don’t break —

They straighten simultaneously, faces nearly touching.

WOMAN DOWNTOWN
[Laughs] My God, but you Latins do have an instinct for the most intimate bits of apparel! —

KING
Me? No, I’m — I didn’t — notice, I —

Set back down on the bed! I put in the box for you.

WOMAN DOWNTOWN
I shouldn’t have laughed. You Latin men don’t understand women’s laughter.

KING
You think I’m buffoon, payaso? A clown?

WOMAN DOWNTOWN
Oh, please no. It was a release of tension. Comprende? I realized all at once that I could trust you completely.

—May I, just to make up?

She gives him a quick, light kiss.

KING
Why don’t you just stay on the bed?

WOMAN DOWNTOWN
I’d fall asleep and who knows what I’d dream? Of my previous confinement, of that butcher’s block of a bed with straps that tore my skin till I screamed — before the electric shock and the Judge saved me from them. Oh, they would have continued the shock treatments till they killed me, wouldn’t have stopped short of assassination to discover who held the original copies of those documents. You see my memory’s still scrambled like —eggs ranchero…

KING
—Huevos rancheros, huh?

WOMAN DOWNTOWN
That’s right, hombre. Exactly like huevos rancheros, good for breakfast, but not for — recollection…

KING
I like ‘em for a late supper when I can’t sleep, yeah, with pepper sauce, tabasco.

WOMAN DOWNTOWN
Oh, you like that, do you? I have a McIlhenny’s tabasco on my little bar here. Why don’t you call room service and ask for two order of huevos rancheros? Room service is the one thing that I can always get on that phone.

KING
You serious?

(A knock.)

WOMAN DOWNTOWN
Must be their doctor. Did you bolt the door?

KING
Mm-hmm.

WOMAN DOWNTOWN
Call through it and tell them I won’t see him. Don’t, don’t admit that imposter!

KING
(calling) The lady is all right now, don’t need to see you. I told you she won’t see you, so get lost!

WOMAN DOWNTOWN
Thank you—oh God, thank you.

KING
Por nada. —Recógete en tu cama. No hay peligro conmigo— There is no danger with me. Now I call room service.

(Into the phone) Oh yes, please — room service.

(To Woman Downtown) Now I am calling room service—they are ringing room service. —Hey Juan, qué tan? Sí Rey! Escucha! Queremos dos Platos de huevos rancheros, Chico, para — What is your name, Miss?

WOMAN DOWNTOWN
That I can’t give you. Call me the Woman Downtown —

KING
I’l just say for Penthouse B. — Para Penthouse B. Ha? Cierra la boca — you fink. You want tell Perla? You wanta be dead tomorrow?

WOMAN DOWNTOWN
Don’t hang up!

KING
Hold on, Juan — You want something else? — To go with the huevos rancheros?

WOMAN DOWNTOWN
He’s a good friend of yours? One you can trust, even here?

KING
Sí, sí, a very good friend from Piedras Negras, Texas — my hometown.

WOMAN DOWNTOWN
—Ask him to put through a call, at once, to the New Medical Center and inquire about the condition of my guardian, Judge Leland Collister, who’s hospitalized there — identify himself as the Judge’s cook, they might give him a report.

KING
Why can’t I call from here?

WOMAN DOWNTOWN
The call wouldn’t be put through.

KING
—Juan, otra cosa, muy discreta, llama el hospital—

WOMAN DOWNTOWN
New Medical Center.

KING
El Nueva Centro Medical. Sí. New Medical Center. Y’ pregunta por—

WOMAN DOWNTOWN
Judge Le-land Col-lis-ter, su condición.

KING
Judge Leland Collister, su condición. Say you work for him, cook, concinero, tú sabes. Ahora, pronto!

He says to me, musta been up with room service, he says you’re in the Penthouse with the classy —

WOMAN DOWNTOWN
—Classy what?

KING
Some a these spicks, y’know, they got a—

WOMAN DOWNTOWN
Classy what? Papaya? Oh, I am flattered, you know.

KING
As, some a the, y’know, they got a — boca grosser…

She kicks off her high-heeled slippers and falls onto the edge of the bed. She spreads her legs, slightly.

WOMAN DOWNTOWN
—Papaya is the name of a tropical fruit.

KING
—Hmm-yes…

WOMAN DOWNTOWN
And is also an idiomatic expression for a woman’s — well, you know —

KING
Where do you learn such things?!

WOMAN DOWNTOWN
Oh, let’s say I was once the prisoner of a man who was hung up on that kind of language. I was forced to listen to those words over and over to — achieve his — erection.

(A dial turns, a song begins.)

There’s your Mariachis. What’s the song?

KING
—Mujer.

WOMAN DOWNTOWN
Just “Woman,” huh?

KING
Yeah. Ain’t that enough?

WOMAN DOWNTOWN
—Alone? —No. —Would you say so?

King rises, distractedly, a hand brushing the fly of his pants.

KING
No. Alone is —

WOMAN DOWNTOWN
Sometimes lonely.

(A phone rings.)

KING
Juan? Sí, una noticia acerca del señor Collister. —Ah. —Sí.

 —Él está mejor.

WOMAN DOWNTOWN
Out of danger?

KING
Aparte de esto? Seguro? They say yes.

WOMAN DOWNTOWN
When released?

KING
Quándo está libre? —Muchas gracias, Chico. Discreto! Ahora — los huevos rancheros, la señorita tiene hambre, apúrate!

 En breve — soon —cálmate.

Listen. I will take you to the Judge. I can call a cab.

WOMAN DOWNTOWN
Don’t you understand? It will always be the same cab, with the same driver, with the face of a demon. Like tonight. You must believe me. Please. For your sake.

KING
I could take a letter for you to him.

WOMAN DOWNTOWN
Not you. Rather your friend Juan — the one who calls me “classy papaya”…

KING
You are gonna wrinkle that — elegant dress you got on…

WOMAN DOWNTOWN
I don’t want to do that.

KING
Then would you —

WOMAN DOWNTOWN
—Like to remove it? Yes. My gift…from the General’s wife…The skin of the Orientals is very delicate skin. She couldn’t bear zippers on dresses, in fact she could wear only silk; she came of Mandarin, ancient Mandarin — lineage. She was utterly barbaric in her instincts, loved watching decapitations through binoculars from a mound of silk cushions in the cupola on the roof of the palace.

King has now slipped off her silk sheath and looks down at her delicate body.

I feel rather chilly. Do you?

KING
I got the, the elegant dress off you.

WOMAN DOWNTOWN
That must be why I noticed a change in the temperature of the room.

KING
—Do you enjoy a — good back-rub?

WOMAN DOWNTOWN
[Laughs abruptly, then a knock is heard.] The huevos rancheros.

KING
Should I tell ‘em forget it?

WOMAN DOWNTOWN
We might be hungry — later.

KING
—Yeah-yeah…

They got tin covers over the huevos rancheros and the plates are—hot…so no hurry…

WOMAN DOWNTOWN
We are all of us hurrying to the same place. So what’s the hurry?

He takes a faltering step toward her.

KING
—Con permiso?

 WOMAN DOWNTOWN
—I do think you’d better!

He embraces her. WOMAN DOWNTOWN loses her breath and tries to right herself.

KING
Por favor! Hold still!

She breaks away from him.

WOMAN DOWNTOWN
You-you-hu-hu

KING
What are you trying to say?

WOMAN DOWNTOWN
Human!

 KING
—Oh. —“Human.” — Yes, I’m —

WOMAN DOWNTOWN
Human!

KING
You say “human” to me like something special about me. A living man is —

WOMAN DOWNTOWN
Yes! Human! To enter my life something human is special, this day, this night, this place, suddenly — you — human! Here! What? I am back there, inhuman. Behind estate walls of my husband’s hacienda where I play hostess to Red Devil Battery Monsters. Great tall prison walls, guarded, oh yes, private deputies guarded with revolvers the entrance; the gates had a guard house and were slid open and shut by electric-eye power, operated by power, and all the grounds were patrolled by—spots clothes for day and dinner jackets at night. —Guards guarded, they had such short friendly names, Pat, Bill, Ray and their, oh, their smiles at the gates and in the guardhouse and along the long drive, their smiles and their laughs and their shouts, it was not at all like the atmosphere of—San Quentin, but—I was — hostess to — monsters! —The guests were not—distinguishable from the guards; the guards were not—distinguishable from the guests.  The guests and the guards shouted short names to each other with the same smiles. Hey, Pat, Bill, Ray, Hiyah, Hi, Hi, Hiyah. Credentials presented at the guardhouse, then the hell of the hollering. Come awn in here, Hi ah yuh, hi, hi hiyah, come in here, you folks drive right on in, and a dog pack, there was also a dog pack, and the dog pack all smiled too. It was all one big hell-hollering death grin. “Wanta drink now or aft you been to your guest house? Anything you want dial zero for service, you heah? Wonderful to see you lookin’ so well; he-llll! Ye-llllll.” Oh, they trusted me to take their attaché cases with the payola and the secrets in code, and why not? Wasn’t I perfectly NOT human too?!

KING
Cálmate!

KING lifts her and places WOMAN DOWNTOWN carefully on the bed.

Cálmate! You are out of that prison! Cálmate. Now be still, we’re—human—together…

(Dial clicks, static, snippets of a program, more static, then an accordion begins to play in the French style.)

(A drink is poured.)

SCOTT
There! Christ — when a writer starts drinking at work — who was it said he’s only got ten years to go? Oh, yes — Galbraith, who never really got started.

Tennessee Williams’ 1980 play, “Clothes For a Summer Hotel”. The setting: Island Hospital, Asheville, North Carolina, 1936, and other remembered places.

Hasn’t put fat on me yet — but there’s time. Hemingway’s still in good shape and drinks more than me. — Or does he?

SCOTT sets a gin bottle on the table.

— There’s time…No more decor, surface of the work, too damn easy for me. Chapter Five is where it must begin to bite hard and deep.

ZELDA

Dear Scott, dear Goofo — “bite hard and deep” — are you writing about a shark, a tiger — a hawk — or a human composite of all three?

SCOTT
—How long have you been standing back there, Zelda?

ZELDA
Just crept in against orders, to admire you at work.

SCOTT
I don’t work to be admired at it.

ZELDA
I know, for the work to be admired. But Goofo, you look so pretty working, at least till—

SCOTT
Pretty did you say?

ZELDA
Admirable, and pretty. At first, you know, I had reservations about marriage to a young man prettier than me.

SCOTT
Than you?

ZELDA
I’m not pretty, only mistaken for it. But Goofo, you really are.

SCOTT
Don’t keep on with that, Zelda, that’s insulting.

ZELDA
I don’t understand why you should find it so objectionable.

SCOTT
The adjective “pretty” is for girls, or pretty boys of — ambiguous gender…

ZELDA
Girls, boys, whatever’s pretty is pretty. Never mind ambiguity of —

SCOTT
In a man?

ZELDA
What? In a man?

SCOTT
Being called pretty implies —

ZELDA
Implies? What? — Implication?

SCOTT
A disparagement of —

ZELDA
What?

SCOTT
You know as well as I know that what it disparages is — the virility of —

ZELDA
Oh, but that’s so established in your case. And even if it wasn’t — you know what I think?

SCOTT
Never.

ZELDA
I think that to write well about women, there’s got to be that, a part of that, in the writer, oh, not too much, not so much that he flits about like a —

SCOTT
Fairy?

ZELDA
You’re too hard on them, Scott. I don’t know why. Do they keep chasing you because you’re so pretty they think you must be a secret one of them?

SCOTT
Zelda, quit this, it’s downright mockery.

ZELDA
Don’t take it seriously, it’s just envy, Scott — I’m not pretty at all.

SCOTT
Zelda, you know that you are an internally celebrated beauty.

ZELDA
Oh? Am I?

SCOTT
The latest issue of Cosmopolitan magazine has a shipboard photograph of us with Scotty, and the caption says —

ZELDA
Headed for an iceberg?

SCOTT
Says: “Brilliant young F. Scott Fitzgerald and his beautiful wife Zelda sail for France. Bon voyage!”

ZELDA
A slightly sinister — caption. Scott? Desperate can go with beauty, with an illusion of it.

SCOTT
—Desperate? Are you desperate, Zelda?

ZELDA
Have no right to be, but —

SCOTT
But you are? — Are you?

ZELDA
—You fall asleep first, before me.

SCOTT
Do I?

ZELDA
Yes. I hold you. I caress your smooth body, sleeping; then feel mine. — Mine’s harder, not so delicate to the touch.

SCOTT
What are you telling me, Zelda? I’m not satisfactory to you? As a —

ZELDA
Sometimes I wish the fires were equal.

SCOTT
Too much of mine goes to work, but —

ZELDA
—Work. —Loveliest of all four-letter words…Circumstances such as—disparities—might some day come between us. A little, or seem to — but this golden band on my finger’s the truth…

Zelda removes a ring from her finger and slips it onto Scott’s.

The lasting truth, even — whatever— time brings little divisions and you are better than me at the cover-up, Scott.

Zelda opens a copy of the Princeton Triangle Club Annual. 

—Why didn’t you ever show me this?

SCOTT
—That?

ZELDA
Is this really a picture of you?

SCOTT
—Zelda, you know very well that every year the Princeton Triangle Club put on a show. Somebody had to appear as the ingénue in it. —That year, I was chosen to pay it. Yes, that’s me. What of it?

ZELDA
Exquisite…a perfect illusion. I’d never achieve it so well.

SCOTT
Who showed that to you? For what purpose?

ZELDA
A lady fan of your fiction —came up to me with it on the beach today. —A gushy type, probably meant no harm but was so loud, “Why, Mrs. Fitzgerald, Mrs. Scott Fitzgerald, can’t believe it, but they swear it’s your husband! Surely not, but the name is —“ —Sara said, “Please! You’re interrupting —“

SCOTT
Zelda, you are interrupting my work! Mustn’t do that, thought it was agreed you wouldn’t!

ZELDA
What about my work?

SCOTT
Your—?

ZELDA
You’re not going out tonight? —To the casino and the masquerade?

SCOTT
Obviously not — since working!

ZELDA
Scott? Goofo? You need a night off to refresh you. You’re driving yourself too hard.

SCOTT
That may be, but the purpose is — necessary. To live and live well. In keeping with our —

ZELDA
What?

SCOTT
Reputation!

ZELDA
Regardless of price? Scott, you’re wearing yourself thin for something I already suspect isn’t worth it, at the price. We’re on the Cote d’Azur with golden people. Generous to us. But the effort to match their bets at the casino, to run in their tracks is —too demanding of my nerves and your —liver…

SCOTT
What about my liver?

ZELDA
Dr. D’Amboise had a private talk with me.

SCOTT
About my —

ZELDA
Liver. He didn’t want to alarm you but there is already some damage on it, and going on like this — the damage will be progressive.  —Oh! Widow’s moon!

SCOTT
What’s a widow’s moon?

ZELDA
Nearly full. When it’s full the cherries will be ripe and when the cherries are ripe the nightingales stop singing. —Bearing the cherries home to their hungry little nestlings.

SCOTT
You seem to have picked up a lot of local lore. But, Zelda, regardless of my liver and the charms of the widow’s moon, I do have to get on with my work. Did you hear me? I must GET ON WITH MY WORK!

ZELDA
What about mine, my work? —What sort of face are you making? Turn around, let me see!

Oh, that is quite a face! A face to strike terror to the heart of any person not equally savage. Well, there is equality in us there: savagery equal, both sides.

SCOTT
Zelda, we are one side, indivisible. You know that, by God, you’d better know that since I’ve staked my life on it, that you’d know it and accept it and — respect it!

(A sip, an exhale, the tinkle of glass breaking.)

ZELDA
Naughty, naughty young writer, drinking while working. So. One side, indivisible, created in liberty and justice with freedom for all? Ha, ha, paraphrase of the oath of allegiance to the classroom flag. So. Sit down. I only want a minute of your time.

SCOTT
I am not going sit down again. I am standing to face you and hear you.

ZELDA
Hear me, good, a change. But answer me, this time, that would be a change, too. I want an answer to my first question, “What about my work?”

SCOTT
You are the wife of a highly respected and successful writer who works night and day to maintain you in —

ZELDA
An impossible situation? Oh, yes, you do that; I don’t dispute your intense absorption in work. Yours! I still say, “What about mine, meaning my work?” — Answer? None? —You threw the glass away, drink out of the bottle.

SCOTT
Your work is the work that all young Southern ladies dream of performing some day. Living well with a devoted husband and a beautiful child.

ZELDA
Are you certain, Scott, that I fit the classification of dreamy young Southern lady? Damn it, Scott. Sorry, wrong size, it pinches! — Can’t wear that shoe, too confining.

SCOTT
I see. It’s too confining. But it’s all that we have to stock!

ZELDA
—Excuse my interruption. I’ll not prolong it; I’ll not do it again; I’ll —find my own way somehow. Used to have some aptitude for dancing: could take that up again, or—I could betray you by taking a lover…Could I? —I could give it a try…

ZELDA exits into the asylum. SCOTT exits another part of the stage.

(Sound of waves breaking.)

After a time, ZELDA reappears in a large, white straw hat and beach robe and sits on a rock.  EDOUARD appears wearing an intern’s jacket. He takes the jacket off, revealing a swimsuit underneath. He moves toward ZELDA who is still sitting on the rocks. He dries his head with a towel.

ZELDA
What a beautiful dive you made off the rocks. We call it a swan dive.

EDOUARD
I went very deep, so deep I nearly touched the bottom.

ZELDA
You are reckless, you have a reckless nature and so have I!

EDOUARD
I know when to be careful: but —

ZELDA
I don’t care to be careful! Anyway, we are alone!

EDOUARD
There could be hidden observers.

Zelda, Zelda, your hands, please: the plage is public! You are —

ZELDA
Unnatural?

EDOUARD
Dangerously—this is not the way of the French; we know passion but we also know caution. With public caution, our passions can be indulged in private. There must be the fictitious names on the register of the—

ZELDA
Chambre de convenance! You see, I’ve picked up the idiom for it in case, just in case—

EDOUARD
I know you’ve never used such a room before.

ZELDA
No, but how would you know?

EDOUARD
By intuition, Frenchmen have intuition.

ZELDA
And as for the fictitious name, I’d like mine to be Daisy.

EDOUARD
Why Daisy?

ZELDA
I was quite infatuated with the mysterious, dashing young Gatsby, and Daisy was his love: a wanton creature, not encumbered with morals, scruples, gifted with—how did Scott put it? —the enormous carelessness of the very rich.

EDOUARD
This is a matter to be approached seriously, Zelda.

ZELDA
Later, yes but not yet. If I approached the matter seriously now, at this moment, with you all wet and gleaming from your swan dive off the rocks, I think I’d cry — diamond tears.

EDOUARD
If serious precautions aren’t taken about this — much as I want it to happen and to be altogether happy — we’ve got to recognize the gravity of the possibilities — in French I could say it easily; the words come right in French; our language was made for making arrangements of this kind —not so close. Can you look casual, Zelda, and listen? I think I know the little hotel. Fictitious names, yes, but not Daisy and not Gatsby, on the register. I’ll use the names of my maternal grandparents?

ZELDA
Who were named?

EDOUARD
Better that you don’t know them, you’d blab them out at some — hysterical moment.

ZELDA
It’s probably not Southern-lady-like to have secrets which are held sacred but—I shall have one, a secret kept securely. I’ve turned away from you; I’ve picked up a shell, coiled, iridescent — an innocent occupation for possible observers while we complete our plans for the illicit occasion in private. Behind a locked door, a securely locked door?

EDOUARD
A door that’s locked and bolted.

ZELDA
With a window facing the sea, open, to admit the sea-wind and the wave sounds, but with curtains that blow inward as if wanting to participate in our caresses! —Here’s another shell, not coiled, but— the window not so high that we’d break bones if had to escape that way, the door being stormed by —

EDOUARD
You’re trembling, Zelda. Are you cold?

ZELDA
Au contraire.

EDOUARD
Frightened?

ZELDA
God, no! Are you?

EDOUARD
A bit shocked by the — imprudence.

ZELDA
But not repelled? Not wanting to call it off?

EDOUARD
Non, non au contraire.  —Shells, birds, creatures of sea and sky…

ZELDA
You’ll have your security ensures, cher, locked, bolted door but behind closed curtains there must be light in the room, you must be all visible to me, indelibly — im-mem-orially! — in my heart’s eye, so if this adventure blows out the eye of the mind. So? When? Tomorrow? Demain?

EDOUARD
Sur la plage. We’ll swim a ways up to the pier. I’ll have a taxi waiting to take us to a little auberge – the Reve Bleu.

ZELDA
Promise? Sacred as secret?

EDOUARD
D’Accord, entendu!

ZELDA
Merci mille fois!

EDOUARD
A beautiful girl does not think a man for enjoying intimacy with her. —We’re being observed by a woman with binoculars on the plage.

ZELDA
(Loudly) How many shells have we collected?

EDOUARD
Only these two.

ZELDA
(Quieter) Two will be sufficient for our purpose at the Auberge Reve Bleu.

EDOUARD
How strange and lovely you are…

ZELDA
And so the appointment is made! The hawk and the hawk will meet in light near the sun!

(Static, a tone, a switch is turned off.)

 ##

HILTON

After the 1961 success of Williams’ “Night of the Iguana,” the playwright went on working for the next twenty years or so in a kind of critical purgatory, which his old friend and sometimes nemesis but always admirer Truman Capote talked to Dick Cavett about in 1980. Play 19:11–20:23

TRUMAN CAPOTE
Here is a man who has devoted his whole life to art, has always tried, and is a genius and who has done fantastically original and marvelous things. Here is this man, and now he’s 70 years old and his last play comes on “Clothes For a Summer Hotel” and the critics just tear into him and zhush! And they’ve been doing this to Tennessee for twenty years.

Now this is something that’s very unique to this country. The English, the French, the Italians, the Germans – they don’t treat their artists that way.  Instead of berating Mr. Willams, who is one of the most distinguished artists this country has produced, instead of these horrible things, terrible things they are saying, they should be praising him and be grateful that such a person exists among them.

HILTON
Time has a way of reducing criticism to dust and restoring art, the art theatre, to its rightful place. And it’s our hope as listeners that you reconsider and restore Tennessee Williams to his.

(Instrumental music plays)

Bringing the plays to life was one of Williams’ great joys as an artist and his admiration for the craft of acting is no less than our own. For their energy, imagination and commitment, we applaud the following players:  As Miriam, The Barman, and Mark, respectively, in “In the Bar of A Tokyo Hotel,” we thank Nadine Malouf, James Yaegashi, and Reed Birney. In “The Red Devil Battery Sign,” we featured Marin Ireland and Raúl Castillo as Woman Downtown and King, followed by “Clothes for a Summer Hotel,” starring Michelle Williams as Zelda Fitzgerald, and André Holland in the dual role of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Edouard.

Once again, dear listener, thank you for your time, and attention, all of which Williams considered the most astonishing and wonderful of surprises: our ability to be human, together. This has been a New York Theatre Workshop presentation, with audio production and editing by Alex Barron, casting and co-produced by Taylor Williams, conceived and directed by yours truly, Hilton Als, signing off now and with great thanks.