The Books: “Orpheus Descending” (Tennessee Williams)

Next in my Daily Book Excerpt:

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

Williams’ first play (Battle of Angels) was basically a first draft for this later (much later) version. Battle of Angels was produced in 1940, Orpheus Descending had its first production in 1957. It’s interesting to read the two plays in tandem, to watch his development as a writer, craftsman. I mean, of course, he developed his craft – but it’s really interesting to see how it manifests itself in these two versions of the same play.

The main female character is no longer named Myra. She is now referred to as Lady Torrance – and everyone calls her “Lady”. She is still trapped in a loveless marriage, to an awful man who is dying – an awful man who was responsible for her father being burned alive some 10 years before. She despises her husband. Maureen Stapleton played Lady.

And again – into this small Southern town comes an outsider. A virile young man named Val, a drifter. In Orpheus Descending his character is way more developed than in Battle of Angels. In Orpheus, he’s kind of a hustler. Or – he was. He’s trying to go clean. He wants to join the legitimate world. Lady gives him a chance, and hires him as a clerk in her candy shop.

Lady and Val end up having an affair. Right under her dying husband’s nose, basically. The situation is fraught with danger. Nobody trusts or likes Val in the town – and Williams is very clever – he keeps the audience on edge as well. WE aren’t sure if we should trust Val. Sure, he’s charming, and sexy, and he has a way with words … but can we trust him?

There’s a minor character in the play, though, named Carol Cutrere who kind of haunts me. She has 2, maybe 3 scenes – she’s not a lead – although she is referred to all the time. I think she’s the best part in the play. I would LOVE to play that part.

She’s a member of one of the best families in town. And yet … well. Something’s “off” about her. She is as wild as they come. She is brazen. Corrupt. She has no scruples, no morals. Her family has demanded that she leave town, and has given orders to every shop, every bar, to not serve her. Carol Cutrere can’t seem to leave town – so she keeps haunting around the edges of things – trying to enter the drugstore, the candy shop … just to use the phone, or have a Coke … As with all of Williams’ wanton women – there’s something broken inside of her. She’s looking for something. She yearns for something. Softness, maybe. Tenderness. The only way she thinks she can get it is by molesting men in the back seats of their cars. She’s a tragic character. A GREAT character.

So I’ll excerpt a bit of one of her scenes. It’s just a perfectly crafted small scene. It tells you everything – without telling it to you straight out. I just LOVE it.

Val makes his first entrance into the play. He enters Lady Torrance’s shop. Lady is there, and a bunch of other gossipy women. Carol Cutrere has snuck in to use the phone. Everyone eavesdrops on her conversation. She is talking to her sister, who lives outside the county lines, and I think she’s going to go stay with her for a while … but it’s obvious, from how Tennessee writes it … that her sister doesn’t want her to come. Nobody wants Carol Cutrere. She is completely on the outside of society.

So. Anyway. Val enters. The women flutter about him. Eventually, they leave – on errands – and Carol is left there alone with Val. And Carol … like a moth to the flame … eventually makes her move. She’s one of those women who can’t help herself. Not because she’s just a gross slut. But because her loneliness is so deep and so wide.

It is important that Carol Cutrere not be like an adult. But like a little girl, wide-eyed, wondrous, trapped in an adult body. She’s a child. Very important. Notice how, in the start of the scene, she says, “Boys like you are always fixing something.” Boys. There’s your clue right there. If she’s played as a knowing woman, a calculated floozy – it’s completely missing the point.

Oh, and just a tip: The long story Carol tells Val about meeting him at a party and the lady osteopath, etc. etc. … is true.

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

[She crosses into the main store, watching Val with the candid curiosity of one child observing another. He pays no attention but concentrates on his belt buckle, which he is repairing with a pocketknife]

CAROL. What’re you fixing?

VAL. Belt buckle.

CAROL. Boys like you are always fixing something. Could you fix my slipper?

VAL. What’s wrong with your slipper?

CAROL. Why are you pretending not to remember me?

VAL. It’s hard to remember someone you never met.

CAROL. Then why’d you look so startled when you saw me?

VAL. Did I?

CAROL. I thought for a moment you’d run back out the door.

VAL. The sight of a woman can make me walk in a hurry but I don’t think it’s ever made me run. — You’re standing in my light.

CAROL. [moving aside slightly] Oh, excuse me. Better?

VAL. Thanks…

CAROL. Are you afraid I’ll snitch?

VAL. Do what?

CAROL. Snitch? I wouldn’t; I’m not a snitch. But I can prove that I know you if I have to. It was New Year’s Eve in New Orleans.

VAL. I need a small pair of pliers …

CAROL. You had on that jacket and a snake ring with a ruby eye.

VAL. I never had a snake ring with a ruby eye.

CAROL. A snake ring with an emerald eye?

VAL. I never had a snake ring with any kind of an eye … [Begins to whistle softly, his face averted]

CAROL. [smiling gently] Then maybe it was a dragon ring with an emerald eye or a diamond or a ruby eye. You told us that it was a gift from a lady osteopath that you’d met somewhere in your travels and that any time you were broke you’d wire this lady osteopath collect, and no matter how far you were or how long it was since you’d seen her, she’d send you a money order for twenty-five dollars with the same sweet message each time. “I love you. When will you come back?” And to prove the story, not that it was difficult to believe it, you took the latest of these sweet messages from your wallet for us to see … [She throws back her head with soft laughter. He looks away still further and busies himself with the belt buckle] — We followed you through five places before we made contact with you and I was the one that made contact. I went up to the bar where you were standing and touched your jacket and said, “What stuff is this made of?” and when you said it was snakeskin, I said, “I wish you’d told me before I touched it.” And you said something not nice. You said, “Maybe that will learn you to hold back your hands.” I was drunk by that time, which was after midnight. Do you remember what I said to you? I said, “What on earth can you do on this earth but catch at whatever comes near you, with both your fingers, until your fingers are broken?” I’d never said that before, or even consciously thought it, but afterwards it seemed like the truest thing that my lips had ever spoken, what on earth can you do but catch at whatever comes near you with both your hands until your fingers are broken … You gave me a quick, sober look. I think you nodded slightly, and then you picked up your guitar and began to sing. After singing you passed the kitty. Whenever paper money was dropped in the kitty you blew a whistle. My cousin Bertie and I dropped in five dollars, you blew the whistle five times and then sat down at our table for a drink, Schenley’s with Seven Up. You showed us all those signatures on your guitar … Any correction so far?

VAL. Why are you so anxious to prove I know you?

CAROL. Because I want to know you better and better! I’d like to go out jooking with you tonight.

VAL. What’s jooking?

CAROL. Oh, don’t you know what that is? That’s where you get in a car and drink a little and drive a little and stop and dance a little to a juke box and then you drink a little more and drive a little more and stop and dance a little more to a juke box and then you stop dancing and you just drink and drive and then you stop driving and just drink, and then, finally, you stop drinking …

VAL. — What do you do then?

CAROL. That depends on the weather and who you’re jooking with. If it’s a clear night you spread a blanket among the memorial stones on Cypress Hill, which is the local bone orchard, but if it’s not a fair night, and this one certainly isn’t, why, usually then you go to the Idlewild cabins between here and Sunset on the Dixie Highway …

VAL. — That’s about what I figured. But I don’t go that route. Heavy drinking and smoking the weed and shacking with strangers is okay for kids in their twenties but this is my thirtieth birthday and I’m all through with that route. [Looks up with dark eyes] I’m not young any more.

CAROL. You’re young at thirty — I hope so! I’m twenty-nine!

VAL. Naw, you’re not young at thirty if you’ve been on a goddam party since you were fifteen!

[Picks up his guitar and sings and plays “Heavenly Grass”. Carol has taken a pint of bourbon from her trench coat pocket and she passes it to him]

CAROL. Thanks. That’s lovely. Many happy returns on your birthday, Snakeskin.