The Books: “I Can’t Imagine Tomorrow” (Tennessee Williams)

Next on the script shelf:

Next Tennessee Williams play on the shelf is I Can’t Imagine Tomorrow, included in The Theatre of Tennessee Williams, Vol. 7: In the Bar of a Tokyo Hotel, and Other Plays. Another one-act from the mid 1960s. I have SUCH strong feelings about this play (uhm … is there any Tennessee play I DON’T have strong feelings about??) – but anyway, I have particularly strong feelings about this one because for some unknown reason – I used a scene from THIS obscure random little one-act for my audition for grad school. (We had to do a scene, with a scene partner – rather than just a monologue.) That whole story of the audition is a story in and of itself which someday I would like to write down – because it gets kind of cosmic, and it’s very vivid … My friend David was my scene partner. I talk about him here all the time. He also guest-blogged for me once … and has an open invitation to post any time he wants. Especially if he keeps posting stuff like this. I swear, the two of us had never been so nervous in all of our lives in the coupld of hours leading up to that audition. And I’ve been auditioning for stuff since I was 16 years old. I’m used to those kinds of nerves. But this? This was nervousness on a whole other level. AND … what was so amazing about it … was we went in there to audition – and … people like Estelle Parsons were there judging us, Paul NEWMAN was there in the audience. Instead of freezing up and getting tense – which can so easily happen when you have that much nervousness – the second we were in front of that illustrious group, we let it all go, and just went NUTS. We were alive, spontaneous, palpitating with life … It was one of the best auditions I’ve ever given. And I hope that I would still feel that way even if I hadn’t gotten in.

But anyway – how we decided upon a scene from this random snippet of a play, I must go back into the memory banks and figure out … Maybe because it was vague and random enough that we could come at it as a blank slate, we could just go in there and be ourselves, pretty much … and not have to worry about the auditors’ preconceived notions of the characters we were playing. Like if you walk into an audition and say, “Yes, I will be doing Stanley’s ‘Stella’ monologue from Streetcar” … well, first of all, you are an idiot. But second of all: the SECOND you say the word Streetcar … immediatley, whether you like it or not, visions of Marlon Brando will start floating through people’s heads. And you will have to contend with that ghost. And you do not want that kind of stress and distraction in an audition. Actors who play the role now still have to deal with the ghost of Brando … it’s inevitable. So I think David and I wanted to avoid that, if possible.

Anyhoo. Enough about that … I should do a proper post about that whole experience someday.

But for now – here’s an excerpt. The play’s alternate title was Dragon Country which I think is a MUCH better title. “I can’t imagine tomorrow” is the last line of the play … so I think making it the title is a weeeee bit heavy-handed. I know Tennessee was in a bad way in the 1960s, but still … I love him so much that I feel I can criticize him a little bit without taking anything away from him. Dragon Country is a much better title.

The play’s about loneliness. Loneliness and the hope for human connection. Tennessee’s main theme throughout his life: can we reach past the barriers we have between us … can we ever break through and really connect?

I’ll post the opening moment.

From “I Can’t Imagine Tomorrow,” included in The Theatre of Tennessee Williams, Vol. 7: In the Bar of a Tokyo Hotel, and Other Plays, by Tennessee Williams

[One and Two are, respectively, a woman and a man approaching middle age: each is the only friend of the other. There are no walls to the set, which contains nonly such pieces of furniture (a sofa, a chair, another chair on the landing of a low flight of stairs, a lamp table and a card table) that are required by the action of the play. There is a doorframe far down stage left. Soft blue evening dusk is the lighting of the play, with soft amber follow spots on the players. The sofa and chair should be upholstered in satin, pastel-colored, perhaps light rose and turquoise. Beside the chair on the stair landing there might be a large potted palm or fern. The woman, One, stands downstage, near the doorframe, with her arms spread apart as if she were dividing curtains to look out a window. She wears a white satin robe with a wine stain on it. The man, two, appears before the doorframe; the woman draws back and covers her face with her hands. Two raises an arm as if to knock at a door. This action is repeated two or three times before the woman crosses to the doorframe and makes the gesture of opening the door]

ONE. Oh, it’s you.

TWO. Yes, it’s me.

ONE. I thought so. [There is a strangely prolonged silence, during which neither moves] You have on your ice-cream suit. [Two laughs at this, embarrassed] Well, don’t just stand there like a delivery boy without anything to deliver.

TWO. You didn’t say come in.

ONE. Come in, come in — enter!

TWO. [entering] Thank you. [There is another strange pause] As I came up the drive I saw you at the window. Then you closed the curtain.

ONE. What’s wrong with that?

TWO. I had to knock and knock before you — opened the door.

ONE. Yes, you nearly broke the door down.

TWO. I wondered if —

ONE. If what?

TWO. You didn’t want to — to —

ONE. Want to what?

TWO. — to see me this — this evening.

ONE. I see you every evening. It wouldn’t be evening without you and the card game and the news on TV.

TWO. But —

ONE. It’s not getting any better, is it?

TWO. What?

ONE. I said it’s not getting any better, your difficulty in speaking.

TWO. It will. It’s — temporary.

ONE. Are you sure? It’s been temporary for a long time now. How do you talk to your students at the high school, or do you say nothing to them, just write things on the blackboard?

TWO. No, I —

ONE. What?

TWO. I’ve been meaning to tell you. It’s been five days since I’ve met my high school classes.

ONE. Isn’t that strange. I thought so. I thought you’d stopped. What next? Something or nothing?

TWO. There’s always —

ONE. What?

TWO. Got to be something, as long as —

ONE. Yes, as long as we live.

TWO. Today. Today I did go.

ONE. To the clinic?

TWO. Yes. There.

ONE. What did you tell them? What did they tell you?

TWO. I only talked to the girl, the —

ONE. Receptionist?

TWO. Yes, she gave me a paper, a —

ONE. An application, a —

TWO. Questionnaire, to —

ONE. Fill out?

TWO. I — I had to inform them if I —

ONE. Yes?

TWO. Had ever before had —

ONE. Psychiatric?

TWO. Treatment, or been — hospitalized.

ONE. And you?

TWO. Wrote no to each question.

ONE. Yes?

TWO. No.

ONE. [impatiently] Yes, I know, you wrote no.

TWO. Then the receptionist told me —

ONE. Told you what?

TWO. There wasn’t an opening for me now, right now, but — I’d be informed as soon as — one of the —

ONE. Doctors?

TWO. Th– therapists could — fit me into his — schedule.

ONE. Did you tell her you were a teacher and the situation was desperate because you can’t talk to your classes?

TWO. She was just the receptionist so I — didn’t go into that. But I put on the, the —

ONE. Questionnaire?

TWO. That there was only one person that I — could still talk to — a little. I underlined desperately and I underlined urgent.

[He pauses. Abashed, he turns away slightly]

ONE. [gently] In this dim light you could pass for one of your students, in your ice-cream suit, just back from the cleaners.

[She drifts away from him]

TWO. On the way coming over I passed a lawn, the lawn of a house, and the house was dark and the lawn was filled with white cranes. I guess at least twenty white cranes were stalking about on the lawn.

ONE. Oh? So?

TWO. At first I thought I was seeing things.

ONE. You were, you were seeing white cranes.

TWO. I suppose they were migrating on their way further south.

ONE. Yes, and stopped off on the lawn of the dark house, perhaps to elect a new leader because the oldone, the one before, was headed in the wrong direction, a little disoriented or losing altitude, huh? So they stopped off on the lawn of the dark house to change their flight plans or just to feel the cool of the evening grass under their feet before they continued their travels.

TWO. It’s only a block from here. Would you like to go over and see them?

ONE. No. Your description of them will have to suffice, but if you would like to go back over and have another look at them, do it, go on. I think they’d accept y ou in your lovely white suit.

TWO. The maid didn’t come today?

ONE. She came but couldn’t get in, the door was bolted.

TWO. Why?

ONE. i didn’t want her fussing around in the house. She knocked and called, and called and knocked and finally gave up and — went away …

TWO. Everything’s just like it was yesterday evening. The cards are still on the table. You still have on your white robe with the wine stain on it.

ONE. I’ve stayed down here since last night. I haven’t gone upstairs. I finished the wine and I slept on the sofa. Oh. No supper tonight. None for me. I did go into the kitchen and opened the Frigidaire, but the sight and smell of the contents made me feel sick. So go in the kitchen and make yourself a sandwich or whatever you want while I deal the cards.

TWO. I’ll make something for us both.

ONE. No, just for yourself! Do you hear me? And eat it out there, in the kitchen. [He goes out of the lighted area. She wanders back to the windowframe and draws her hands apart as if dividing curtains] — Dragon Country, the country of pain, is an uninhabitable country which is inhabited, though. Each one crossing through that huge, barren country has his own separate track to follow across it alone. If the inhabitants, the explorers of Dragon Country, looked about them, they’d see other explorers, but in this country of endured but unendurable pain each one is so absorbed, deafened, blinded by his own journey across it, he sees, he looks for, no one else crawling across it with him. It’s uphill, up mountain, the climb’s very steep: takes you to the top of the bare Sierras. — I won’t cross into that country where there’s no choice anymore. I’ll stop at the border of the Sierras, refuse to go any further. — Once I read of an old Eskimo woman who knew that her time was finished and asked to be carried out of the family home, the igloo, and be deposited alone on a block of ice that was breaking away from the rest of the ice floe, so that she could drift away, separated — from — all … [Two returns with a plate of sandwiches] Back, back, take it back or I’ll send you away!