The Books: “The Last of My Solid Gold Watches” (Tennessee Williams)

Next on the script shelf:

27WagonsFullOfCotton.jpgNext Tennessee Williams play on the shelf is The Last of My Solid Gold Watches, included in 27 Wagons Full of Cotton And Other One-Act Plays. Kind of a Death of a Salesman for the Missisissippi Delta. It’s a one-act – and Williams dedicated it to Sydney Greenstreet “for whom the principal character was hopefully conceived”. You read it and you just SEE Sydney Greenstreet in the role, in all his glorious girth, his sense of self-importance … What a classic actor.

Mr. Charlie Colton (the lead role) is a traveling shoe salesman. Once one of the best. But now … the world is changing … people don’t care about quality anymore … even the younger salesmen don’t care about quality … and worse than that: they have never even heard of the great Charlie Colton. Colton is a Willy Loman-esque character, at least in his plight, and in his pathos.

He shows up at a hotel in some Mississippi Delta town – where he has always stayed – and he and the old “Negro porter” kind of bond over how much the hotel has deteriorated since Colton was there last. Colton remembers coming to the hotel when it was glittering, packed with people, and when he could get a bunch of high-rollers to play poker in his room. No more. You can tell that he and the Negro porter are both, actually, members of a dying world.

He sends the Negro porter down to the lobby to find one of the younger salesman and have him come up to play cards. This younger salesman, Harper, is visibly bored in Colton’s company – he doesn’t do the proper thing, which would be: to laugh uproariously at Colton’s bad jokes, listen agog to his stories of how it used to be on the road, never interrupt him, etc. Colton is kind of a bore … but, like Willy Loman, you ache for him. His time is ending. He knows it. It fills him with despair. What, then, was his entire life?

I’ll excerpt part of the long exchange between Colton and Harper that leads into the end of the play.

From The Last of My Solid Gold Watches, by Tennessee Williams

MR. CHARLIE. I belong to — tradition. I am a legend. Known from one end of the Delta to the other. From the Peabody Hotel in Memphis to Cat-Fish Row in Vicksburg. Mistuh Charlie — Mistuh Charlie! Who knows you? What do you represent? A line of goods of doubtful value, some kike concern in the East! Get out of my room! I’d rather play solitaire, than poker with men who’re no more solid characters than the jack in the deck! [He opens the door for the young salesman who shrugs and steps out with alacrity. Then he slams the door shut and breathes heavily. The Negro enters with a pitcher of ice water]

NEGRO. [grinning] What you shoutin’ about, Mistuh Charlie?

MR. CHARLIE. I lose my patience sometimes. Nigger —

NEGRO. Yes, suh?

MR. CHARLIE. You remember the way it used to be.

NEGRO. [gently] Yes, suh.

MR. CHARLIE. I used to come in town like a conquering hero! Why, my God, nigger — they all but laid red carpets at my feet! Isn’t that so?

NEGRO. That’s so, Mistuh Charlie.

MR. CHARLIE. This room was like a throne-room. My samples laid out over there on green velvet cloth! The ceiling-fan going — now broken! And over here — the wash-bowl an’ pitcher removed and the table-top loaded with liquor! In and out from the time I arrived till the time I left, the men of the road who knew me, to whom I stood for things commanding respect! Poker — continuous! Shouting, laughing — hilarity! Where have they all gone to?

NEGRO. [solemnly nodding] The graveyard is crowded with folks we knew, Mistuh Charlie. It’s mighty late in the day!

MR. CHARLIE. Huh! [He crosses to the window] Nigguh, it ain’t even late in the day any more — [He throws up the blind] It’s NIGHT! [The space of the window is black]

NEGRO. [softly, with a wise old smile] Yes, suh … Night, Mistuh Charlie!

CURTAIN

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1 Response to The Books: “The Last of My Solid Gold Watches” (Tennessee Williams)

  1. Tim Sheahan says:

    Love this rich and deep one act play. It is timeless and has so much relevance. Charlie is wonderful character to put on stage and the words that he speaks give life, and time to reflect about how we have lived and how we live regardless of our age. Both Charlie and the audience have much to learn from his words.

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