The Books: “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” (Tennessee Williams)

Next on my script shelf:

I’m in Tennessee Williams land now, and will be there for quite some time! I am having such a great time re-acquainting myself with all of his plays.

Next Tennessee Williams play on the shelf is Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, included in The Theatre of Tennessee Williams, Vol. 3: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof / Orpheus Descending / Suddenly Last Summer.

I think Brick is one of Williams’ best male creations. He’s up there with Stanley, in my opinion. And in a way, he’s more … haunting. Because Stanley just does what he does, and feels very little shame about it – even when he does feel shame, it’s more of a manipulative thing, to get back in good with his wife. He has no TRUE sense of shame. Or sin. And a sense of shame and sin is ALL that Brick has. And so he is a man in torment. What a tragic character. I know a guy like Brick. He was one of my dearest old flames. And … sometimes I think about him and just shake my head. Not in judgment, but in sadness. How can someone commit to drinking like that? As a full-time job? What is it within them? In Brick it is self-disgust. Loathing at his own buried (and unadmitted to himself) homosexuality. The way Williams presents Brick to us is genius. We only know about who Brick used to be through inference and exposition. We hear that he was a college football star. That he was the golden boy of the town. That he was a professional football player for only one season … that he became a sportscaster for one year … and then … something happened. An event. And after that he began to drink himself to death. The depiction of alcoholism that Williams gives us in Brick is so chilling – it’s not your typical lush-y drunk, there’s no stereotype in it. Brick gets vague, dreamy, and yet at the same time – completely committed to alcohol. It is his only concern. He says that he has to drink until he feels “the click” – and after he feels “the click” – he can get calm and peaceful. And Brick is so matter of fact about it. Maggie, his wife, is trying to talk to him, or argue with him, and he’ll down another drink, and get a baffled expression on his face and say, “I should be feeling the click by now …” It’s tragic.

Ben Gazzara originated the role on Broadway. And Barbara Bel Geddes (love her!!) originated the role of Maggie – which gives you some idea of the difference between Broadway and Hollywood, although Taylor was terrific in the part. I think because Taylor played the role in the film, there’s a misunderstanding about Maggie (basically because people get Taylor the actress mixed up with the character). At least there seems to be – in the couple of productions I’ve seen. Where the actress plays Maggie like some kind of wanton open-legged floozy. That’s wrong. Maggie is indeed “in heat”. She’s a cat on a hot tin roof. She’s about to explode from lack of affection. But slut? Whore? That’s such a disgusting interpretation of this character. I think some people, or some critics, still have a problem with women expressing sexual needs, and find Maggie being so bold about it as somehow grotesque. I don’t know – a lot of the commentary about “Maggie the Cat” has a veiled sense of disgust towards this poor woman who is so desperate for a little love from her husband. I don’t like that. She is a loyal woman, born to be loyal to her husband til death do them part, and that one man is Brick – and he won’t touch her – and so, through that deprivation, she slowly goes out of her mind. Just because she wants and needs sex doesn’t make her a slut, or a sex bomb. She is a human being, yearning for connection, for love with her husband, for intimacy. He cannot give it to her. She guesses why. She guesses at his deep dark secret. She tries to talk to him about it, with love, with understanding – But he, with his self-hatred, will not let her come close to naming it. The two of them are locked in a kind of battle. She continuously walks around him in her underwear, talking about how she’s fertile, how beautiful she finds him … all hoping that that will spark his interest. Meanwhile, he stands by the liquor cabinet, waiting to feel “the click”.

The scene that opens this play – which, with the exception of 1 or 2 interruptions – is a masterpiece. It’s just the two of them in their bedroom. Brick has begun to drink. Maggie talks and talks and talks, realizing the rejection in his silence, but she can’t stop herself … because she desires him so much, she loves him so much, she is starving basically – starving – she can’t live without touch for much longer.

You feel for Brick – man, do you feel for him – but you feel for Maggie as well. How I would have loved to see Gazzara and Bel Geddes battle it out. Man, oh man, must have been incredible.

I’ll post a bit from that enormous first scene. Also, pay close attention to Tennessee Williams’ italicized directions – So many times with playwrights that stuff is useless (and actually sometimes harmful to an actor – you want to block that shit out) – but with Williams, you had better listen. It’s amazing.

For example, he writes for 2 pages at the beginning of the play about what the set should be like. He has obviously dreamed this place into reality in his mind. Williams is always thinking on 2 levels: the realistic and the metaphoric. He rarely lets the symbols outweigh the reality – but you MUST have both levels going on at the same time to really be doing Williams. This includes set design, sound design, costume … Williams ends his two page set description with this:

I once saw a reproduction of a faded photograph of the verandah of Robert Louis Stevenson’s home on that Samoan Island where he spent his last years, and there was a quality of tender light on weathered wood, such as porch furniture made of bamboo and wicker, exposed to tropical suns and tropical rains, which came to mind when I thought about the set for this play, bringing also to mind the grace and comfort of light, the reassurance it gives, on a late and fair afternoon in summer, the way that no matter what, even dread of death, is gently touched and soothed by it. For the set is the background for a play that deals with human extremities of emotion, and it needs that softness behind it.

Brilliant. Just brilliant. It’s that kind of specific duality – the concrete (photograph of Samoan Island) and the poetic (“it needs that softness behind it”) is why I cherish Williams.

The awful event that happened, by the way, that made Brick start to drink is this:

He had the “platonic ideal” of male friendship with a fellow football player named Skipper. They were thick as thieves once upon a time. But the way it is discussed – even if Brick can’t admit it – you just know there was something sexual between them. Maybe Skipper loved Brick more than Brick loved Skipper – who knows – but Skipper, desperate to prove to himself and the world that he was not “queer” (ugly word) – he seduced Maggie (who is Brick’s wife and who – of course – was starving for love at the time). And basically, Skipper found that he could not perform sexually. This was the crushing moment. Skipper basically checked out of life at that moment. So deep was the self-hatred of gay people at that time. There were no … options … you would be beyond the pale … it just wasn’t done … And Skipper couldn’t admit it to himself. Skipper died in a car crash. And Brick lost interest in life at that moment.

Skipper hovers over every moment of this play like a ghost. Skipper was Brick’s perfect love.

Anyway – here’s some of that long first scene. Just a snippet – I’ll pick it up in the middle of something, so you just have to leap in. Oh, and lastly: Brick broke his ankle the night before because he was drunk and he went to the track and tried to leap over the hurdles. He is now hobbling around on crutches.

EXCERPT FROM Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, included in The Theatre of Tennessee Williams, Vol. 3: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof / Orpheus Descending / Suddenly Last Summer. by Tennessee Williams

MARGARET. Y’know what happened to poor little Susie McPheeters?

BRICK. [absently] No. What happened to little Susie McPheeters?

MARGARET. Somebody spit tobacco juice in her face.

BRICK. [dreamily] Somebody spit tobacco juice in her face?

MARGARET. That’s right, some old drunk leaned out of a window in the Hotel Gayoso and yelled, “Hey, Queen, hey, hey, there, Queenie!” Susie looked up and flashed him a radiant smile and he shot out a squirt of tobacco juice right in poor Susie’s face.

BRICK. Well, what d’you know about that.

MARGARET. [gaily] What do I know about it? I was there, I saw it!

BRICK. [absently] Must have been kind of funny.

MARGARET. Susie didn’t think so. Had hysterics. Screamed like a banshee. They had to stop th’ parade an’ remove her from her throne an’ go on with —

[She catches sight of him in the mirror, gasps slightly, wheels about to face him. Count ten]

— Why are you looking at me like that?

BRICK. [whistling softly, now] Like what, Maggie?

MARGARET. [intensely, fearfully] The way y’ were lookin’ at me just now, befo’ I caught your eye in the mirror and you started t’ whistle! I don’t know how t’ describe it but it froze my blood! — I’ve caught you lookin’ at me like that so often lately. What are you thinkin’ of when you look at me like that?

BRICK. I wasn’t conscious of lookin’ at you, Maggie.

MARGARET. Well, I was conscious of it! What were you thinkin’?

BRICK. I don’t remember thinking of anything, Maggie.

MARGARET. Don’t you think I know that –? Don’t you —? Think I know that —?

BRICK. [coolly] Know what, Maggie?

MARGARET. [struggling for expression] That I’ve gone through this — hideous! — transformation, become — hard! Frantic!

[Then she adds, almost tenderly:]

— cruel!! That’s what you’ve been observing in me lately. How could y’ help but observe it? That’s all right. I’m not — thin-skinned anymore, can’t afford t’ be thin-skinned any more.

[She is now recovering her power]

— But Brick? Brick?

BRICK. Did you say something?

MARGARET. I was goin to say something: that I get — lonely. Very!

BRICK. Ev’rybody gets that …

MARGARET. Living with someone you love can be lonelier — than living entirely alone! — if the one that y’ love doesn’t love you …

[There is a pause. Brick hobbles downstage and asks, without looking at her]

BRICK. Would you like to live alone, Maggie?

MARGARET. No! — God! — I wouldn’t!

[Another gasping breath. She forcibly controls what must have been an impulse to cry out. We see her deliberately, very forcibly, going all the way back to the world in which you can talk about ordinary matters]

Did you have a nice shower?

BRICK. Uh-huh.

MARGARET. Was the water cool?

BRICK. No.

MARGARET. But it made y’ feel fresh, huh?

BRICK. Fresher …

MARGARET. I know something would make y’ feel much fresher!

BRICK. What?

MARGARET. An alcohol rub. Or cologne, a rub with cologne!

BRICK. That’s good after a workout but I haven’t been workin’ out, Maggie.

MARGARET. You’ve kept in good shape, though.

BRICK. [indifferently] You think so, Maggie?

MARGARET. I always thought drinkin’ men lost their looks, but I was plainly mistaken.

BRICK. [wryly] Why, thanks, Maggie.

MARGARET. You’re the only drinkin’ man I know that it never seems t’ put fat on.

BRICK. I’m gettin’ softer, Maggie.

MARGARET. Well, sooner or later it’s bound to soften you up. It was just beginning to soften Skipper up when —

[She stops short]

I’m sorry. I never could keep my fingers off a sore — I wish you would lose your looks. If you did it would make the martyrdom of Saint Maggie a little more bearable. But no such goddam luck. I actually believe you’ve gotten better looking since you’ve gone on the bottle. Yeah, a person who didn’t know you would think you’d never had a tense nerve in your body or a strained muscle.

[There are sounds of croquet on the lawn below; the click of mallets, light voices, near and distant]

Of course, you always had that detached quality as if you were playing a game without much concern over whether you won or lost, and now that you’ve lost the game, not lost but just quit playing, you have that rare sort of charm that usually only happens in very old or hopelessly sick people, the charm of the defeated. — You look so cool, so cool, so enviably cool.

[Music is heard]

They’re playing croquet. The moon has appeared and it’s white, just beginning to turn a little bit yellow …

You were a wonderful lover …

Such a wonderful person to go to bed with, and I think mostly because you were really indifferent to it. Isn’t that right? Never had any anxiety about it, did it naturally, easily, slowly, with absolute confidence and perfect calm, more like opening a door for a lady or seating her at a table than giving expression to any longing for her. Your indifference made you wonderful at lovemaking — strange? — but true …

You know, if I thought you would never, never, never make love to me again — I would go downstairs to the kitchn and pick out the longest and sharpest knife I could find and stick it straight into my heart, I swear that I would.

But one thing I don’t have is the charm of the defeated, my hat is still in the ring, and I am determined to win!

[There is the sound of croquet mallets hitting croquet balls]

— What is the victory of a cat on a hot tin roof? — I wish I knew …

Just staying on it, I guess, as long as she can …

[More croquet sounds]

Later tonight I’m going to tell you I love you an’ maybe by that time you’ll be drunk enough to believe me. Yes, they’re playing croquet …

Big Daddy is dying of cancer …

What were you thinking of when I caught you looking at me like that? Were you thinking of Skipper?

[Brick crosses to the bar, takes a quick drink, and rubs his head with a towel]

Laws of silence don’t work …

When something is festering in your memory or your imagination, laws of silence don’t work, it’s like shutting a door and locking it on a house on fire in hope of forgetting that the house is burning. But not facing a fire doesn’t put it out. Silence about a thing just magnifies it. It grows and festers in silence, becomes malignant ….

Get dressed, Brick.

[He drops his crutch]

BRICK. I’ve dropped my crutch.

[He has stopped rubbing his hair dry but still stands hanging onto the towel rack in a white towel-cloth robe]

MARGARET. Lean on me.

BRICK. No, just give me my crutch.

MARGARET. Lean on my shoulder.

BRICK. I don’t want to lean on your shoulder, I want my crutch!

[This is spoken like sudden lightning]

Are you going to give me my crutch or do I have to get down on my knees on the floor and —

MARGARET. Here, here, take it, take it!]

[She has thrust the crutch at him

BRICK. [hobbling out] Thanks …

MARGARET. We mustn’t scream at each other, the walls in this house have ears …

[He hobbles directly to liquor cabinet to get a new drink]

— but that’s the first time I’ve heard you raise your voice in a long time, Brick. A crack in the wall? — Of composure?

— I think that’s a good sign …

A sign of nerves in a player on the defensive!

[Brick turns and smiles at her coolly over his fresh drink]

BRICK. It just hasn’t happened yet, Maggie.

MARGARET. What?

BRICK. The click I get in my head when I’ve had enough of this stuff to make me peaceful …