The Books: “27 Wagons Full of Cotton” (Tennessee Williams)

Next on the script shelf:

Next Tennessee Williams play on the shelf is 27 Wagons Full of Cotton (included in the collection of plays under the same name: 27 Wagons Full of Cotton And Other One-Act Plays.)

This is probably Tennessee’s most famous one-act. It was expanded upon and developed into the film Baby Doll, which is a riot – I love that movie.

Baby Doll was written strictly as a screenplay – there is much in it that is not recognizable to the original – but it’s all the same characters, same plot (babyish woman-child, swarthy neighbor, doofus husband – burning-down cotton gin … etc.) – only the tone of the film is much lighter, more madcap … 27 Wagons, the one-act, is bleak, man. The characters are slightly altered, to become a bit more palatable to a movie-going public (like the main character is not so much a mentally handicapped woman obsessed wtih Coca Cola and her plastic purse – but a woman-child sexpot, trapped in a loveless marriage). Still shocking – but not so much as the spectre of raping a mentally disturbed woman, as payment for financial losses.

However, the movie was still condemned by the Catholic Church, and community groups, and moral police, etc. It is, actually, quite a perverse film. But that’s, in my opinion, something to recommend it – not something against it. There was a billboard in Times Square of Carroll Baker, as the character of Baby Doll, which caused an uproar. heh heh heh

Here was the image on the billboard – 3 blocks long in Times Square:

Like I said, perverse.

Baby Doll is a grown woman. But she’s a child. In the film version, this is all taken to its logical conclusion: she sleeps IN A CRIB. She sucks her thumb. She sashays around her house sucking on lollipops. She’s married to a man who controls her and roughs her up … and … she likes it. She enjoys pain. She screams and cries and tries to get away, but something in her likes it.

The upstanding people of the 1950s flipped OUT when they saw all this. It was far too ambiguous.

The film basically has a happy ending. But there is no happy ending in the one-act. However, just to throw a wrench into all of this, the full title of the one- act is 27 Wagons Full of Cotton – a Mississippi Delta Comedy. An insight into how he saw the whole thing. Actors would do well to remember that when they try to play these scenes. They SEEM dark … but there should be a comedic level to all of it. It’s not a tragedy.

Okay, so off of the film and into the one-act.

Baby Doll, in the play, is named Flora. Flora is married to Jake. Jake owns a cotton gin, and is a big stupid brute of a man. Flora is content in her life as long as she has bottles of Coca Cola in the house, and she gets to carry her nice little white kid purse. She is probably mildly retarded, actually. Or maybe just “simple”. Who knows. She’s in a marriage that has this sado-masochistic element to it. Jake treats her like a big dumb nobody, she ignores it, or tries to protest.

The play opens with an enormous explosion offstage. The plantation next door, owned by an Italian man named Silva Vicarro, caught on fire – and the cotton gin burned down. Flora watches the fire from the porch, incredibly annoyed because Jake had promised to take her downtown for a Coke, and now he is nowhere to be found.

He finally returns … and within 2 or 3 lines it is obvious that he has set fire to the plantation next door, in order to boost up his business – Vicarro will need to have someone take care of the 27 wagons full of cotton that were just picked – and Vicarro will have to come to him, out of the convenience of it. Jake tries to coach Flora into believing that he never left the house, that he was there the whole time – setting up his alibi – but Flora doesn’t get it. She keeps insisting, “You was NOT here!” Finally, with a little physical force, Jake gets Flora to say, “You were here the whole time!!” That’s scene 1.

Scene 2 is one of the staples in scene classes across America. I did this scene. All my friends have done this scene. I’ve seen it a gazillion times. There’s a reason why: it’s a perfectly crafted two character scene. Two opposing objectives – clashing. It’s great stuff.

Scene 2 opens with Silva Vicarro (played by Eli Wallach in the film) talking with Jake about handling the 27 wagons full of cotton. You can just tell that Vicarro knows that Jake set the fire. Vicarro is laid back, though – like a snake waiting to pounce – he doesn’t make accusations – he just knows what he’s dealing with – knows what Jake is – and has decided to get his revenge another way. Jake goes off to oversee the cotton, and leaves Flora with Vicarro, giving her the instruction to make Vicarro feel comfortable. Flora is all a-flutter, and Vicarro hones in on her … he keeps her off-balance, he asks her sudden penetrating questions about where her husband was the night before – she gets all flustered – He starts coming on to her – and she is so susceptible to being touched that she starts to melt almost immediately. Against her will. He also has a riding whip with him – he switches it at her playfully throughout the scene – but it’s a threat. Anyway, the whole scene ends with him raping her inside the house. He gets his revenge on the man who burned down his plantation by terrorizing his wife.

Uh … yeah. I’d call that a comedy!!

Great scene, though – so, of course, I will excerpt a bit from that scene. It’s a long one, but I’ll just excerpt the end of it.

From 27 Wagons Full of Cotton, by Tennessee Williams

VICARRO. There’s a lot of fine cotton lint floating round in the air.

FLORA. I know there is. It irritates my nose. I think it gets up in my sinus.

VICARRO. Well, you’re a delicate woman.

FLORA. Delicate? Me? Oh, no, I’m too big for that.

VICARRO. Your size is part of your delicacy, Mrs. Meighan.

FLORA. How do you mean?

VICARRO. There’s a lot of you, but every bit of you is delicate. Choice. Delectable, I might say.

FLORA. Huh?

VICARRO. I mean you’re altogether lacking in any — coarseness. You’re soft. Fine-fibered. And smooth.

FLORA. Our talk is certainly taking a personal turn.

VICARRO. Yes. You make me think of cotton.

FLORA. Huh?

VICARRO. Cotton!

FLORA. Well! Should I say thanks or something?

VICARRO. No, just smile, Mrs. Meighan. You have an attractive smile. Dimples!

FLORA. No …

VICARRO. Yes, you have! Smile, Mrs. Meighan! Come on — smile! [Flora averts her face, smiling helplessly] There now. See? You’ve got them! [He delicately touches one of the dimples]

FLORA. Please don’t touch me. I don’t like to be touched.

VICARRO. Then why do you giggle?

FLORA. Can’t help it. You make me feel kind of hysterical, Mr. Vicarro. Mr. Vicarro —

VICARRO. Yes?

FLORA. I hope you don’t think that Jake was mixed up in that fire. I swear to goodness he never left the front porch. I remember it perfeckly now. We just set here on the swing till the fire broke out and then we drove in town.

VICARRO. To celebrate?

FLORA. No, no, no.

VICARRO. Twenty-seven wagons full of cotton’s a pretty big piece of business to fall in your lap like a gift from the gods, Mrs. Meighan.

FLORA. I thought you said that we would drop the subjeck.

VICARRO. You brought it up that time.

FLORA. Well, please don’t try to mix me up any more. I swear to goodness the fire had already broken out when he got back.

VICARRO. That’s not what you told me a moment ago.

FLORA. You got me all twisted up. We went in town. The fire broke out an’ we didn’t know about it.

VICARRO. I thought you said it irritated your sinus.

FLORA. Oh, my God, you sure put words in my mouth. Maybe I’d better make us some lemonade.

VICARRO. Don’t go to the trouble.

FLORA. I’ll go in an’ fix it direckly, but right at this moment I’m too weak to get up. I don’t know why, but I can’t hardly hold my eyes open. They keep falling shut … I think it’s a little two crowded, two on a swing. Will you do me a favor an’ set back down over there!

VICARRO. Why do you want me to move?

FLORA. It makes too much body heat when we’re crowded together.

VICARRO. One body can borrow coolness from another.

FLORA. I always heard that bodies borrowed heat.

VICARRO. Not in this case. I’m cool.

FLORA. You don’t seem like it to me.

VICARRO. I’m just as cool as a cucumber. If you don’t believe it, touch me.

FLORA. Where?

VICARRO. Anywhere.

FLORA. [rising with great effort] Excuse me. I got to go in. [He pulls her back down] What did you do that for?

VICARRO. I don’t want to be deprived of your company yet.

FLORA. Mr. Vicarro, you’re getting awf’ly familiar.

VICARRO. Haven’t you got any fun-loving spirit about you?

FLORA. This isn’t fun.

VICARRO. Then why do you giggle?

FLORA. I’m ticklish! Quit switching me, will yuh?

VICARRO. I’m just shooing the flies off.

FLORA. Leave ’em be, then, please. They don’t hurt nothin’.

VICARRO. I think you like to be switched.

FLORA. I don’t. I wish you’d quit.

VICARRO. You’d like to be switched harder.

FLORA. No, I wouldn’t.

VICARRO. That blue mark on your wrist —

FLORA. What about it?

VICARRO. I’ve got a suspicion.

FLORA. Of what?

VICARRO. It was twisted. By your husband.

FLORA. You’re crazy.

VICARRO. Yes, it was. And you liked it.

FLORA. I certainly didn’t. Would you mind moving your arm?

VICARRO. Don’t be so skittish.

FLORA. Awright. I’ll get up then.

VICARRO. Go on.

FLORA. I feel so weak.

VICARRO. Dizzy?

FLORA. A little bit. Yeah. My head’s spinning round. I wish you would stop the swing.

VICARRO. It’s not swinging much.

FLORA. But even a little’s too much.

VICARRO. You’re a delicate woman. A pretty big woman, too.

FLORA. So is America. Big.

VICARRO. That’s a funny remark.

FLORA. Yeah. I don’t know why I made it. My head’s so buzzy.

VICARRO. Fuzzy?

FLORA. Fuzzy an’ — buzzy … Is something on my arm?

VICARRO. No.

FLORA. Then what’re you brushing?

VICARRO. Sweat off.

FLORA. Leave it alone.

VICARRO. Let me wipe it. [He brushes her arm with a handkerchief]

FLORA. [laughing weakly] No, please, don’t. It feels funny.

VICARRO. How does it feel?

FLORA. It tickles me. All up an’ down. You cut it out now. If you don’t cut it out I’m going to call.