Next on the script shelf:
Next Tennessee Williams play on the shelf is “Confessional,” included in The Theatre of Tennessee Williams, Vol. 7: In the Bar of a Tokyo Hotel, and Other Plays
Confessional is basically like a preliminary sketch in preparation for a final drawing. The title says it all, too. I mentioned in the post about Small Craft Warnings that, in my opinion, that’s his best title – in terms of what it means in the context of the play, its subtlety, it makes you think, it has multiple levels of meaning – literal, metaphoric, poetic … But “confessional” is straight-up descriptive – it’s describing the play itself. Not a good title. In this play, each character (they’re all regulars at a divey bar that sits on a highway in California somewhere) – steps downstage, out of the action of the play, the lights around him dim – leaving him in the spotlight – and he gives a monologue directly to the audience – where he shares what’s going on in his heart, his mind, his soul. It’s a confession. So the title of this earlier play just doesn’t do it for me. It’s Williams basically just sketching in the main elements – to be filled in at a later date.
All the elements that end up in Small Craft Warnings are here, in some form … only simplified, not so complex and human.
I love it when different versions of Williams’ stuff is published – I love to read both versions in tandem. I just love to do that … to really try to get a sense of how he worked.
In general, he ALWAYS made the correct choices, in terms of editing himself. So many playwrights, when they edit, make their plays worse. I can’t even tell you how much that is the norm. They do not know how to FIX things. Williams, man – he knew how to fix stuff if it wasn’t working.
Anyway, here’s an excerpt from Confessional – one of Leona’s big long monologues at the beginning of the play. It’s not exactly her confession here – at least it doesn’t start out that way – she actually is addressing the drunken patrons of the bar. But by the end, all the lights dim, and Leona turns to the audience … Leona is a blowsy hairdresser, a drifter, a mean drunk, loud-mouthed and obnoxious – she lives in a trailer, she picks up men … but she is a survivor. She lands on her feet. The wonderful thing about these “confessions” is that they reveal the truth. We all have a social face we put on (unless we’re insane). We all manage to say, on occasion, “I’m fine”, when we are NOT fine. If someone says to you, “How was your weekend?” – unless you are insane, with no boundaries, in general you say, “Good! Busy! Too short! Got a lot done! Had a nice time!” Whatever. You don’t say (especially if the person asking you the question is a co-worker or your doorman or whatever): “I spent Saturday night drunk alone in my apartment, staring at myself in the mirror, and wondering why I had ever been born.” So the confessions of this play gives these characters – these tough street-wise characters who HAVE to put on a big show of how FINE they are – a chance to open up, to let us know that they actually are NOT doing okay.
Leona’s following speech is a perfect example.
From “Confessional,” included in The Theatre of Tennessee Williams, Vol. 7: In the Bar of a Tokyo Hotel, and Other Plays
LEONA. I don’t care how I look as long as I’m clean and decent — and self-supporting. When I haul into a new town, I just look through the yellow pages of the telephone directory and pick out a beauty shop that’s close to my trailer camp. I go to the shop and offer to work a couple of days for nothing, and after that couple of days I’m in like Flynn, and on my own terms which is fifty percent of charges for all I do, and my tips, of course, too. They like my work and they like my personality, my approach to customers. I keep them laughing.
BILL. You keep me laughing, too.
LEONA. — Of course, there’s things about you I’ll remember with pleasure, such as waking up sometimes in the night and looking over the edge of the upper bunk to see you asleep in the lower.
[Bill leaves the table. She raises her voice to address the bar-at-large]
Yeah, he slept in the lower cause when he’d passed out or nearly, it would of taken a derrick to haul him into the upper bunk. So I gave him the lower bunk and took the upper myself.
BILL. As if you never pass out. Is that the idea you’re selling?
LEONA. When I pass out I wake up in a chair or on the floor, but when you pass out, which is practically every night, I haul you onto your bunk. I never would dream of leaving you stoned on the floor, I’d get you into your bunk and out of your shoes when you passed out on the floor, and you know Goddam well you never done that for me, oh, no, the floor was good enough for me in your opinon, and sometimes you stepped on me even, yeah, like I was a rug or a bug, and that’s the God’s truth and you know it, because your nature is selfish. You think because you’ve lived off one woman after anotehr woman after eight or ten other women you’re something superior, special. Well, you’re special but not superior, baby. I’m going to worry about you after I’ve gone and I’m sure as hell leaving tonight, fog or no fog on the highway, but I’ll worry about you because you refuse to grow up and that’s a mistake that you make, because you can only refuse to grow up for a limited period in your lifetime and get by with it. — I loved you! — I’m not going to cry.
[Violet starts weeping for her]
When I come to a new place, it takes me two or three weeks, that’s all it takes me, to find somebody to live with in my home on wheels and to find a night spot to hang out in. Those first two or three weeks are rough, sometimes I wish I’d stayed where I was before, but I know from experience that I’ll find somebody and locate a night spot to booze in, and get acquainted with — friends …. [The light has focused on her. She moves downstage with her hands in her pockets, her face and voice very grave as if she were less confident that things will be as she says] And then, all at once, something wonderful happens. All the past disappointments in people I left behind me, just disappear, evaporate from my mind, and I just remember the good things, such as their sleeping faces, and — Life! Life! I never just said, “Oh, well,” I’ve always said, “Life!” to life, like a song to God, and when I die, I’ll say “death” like a song to God, too, because I’ve lived in my lifetime and not been afraid of — changes … [She goes back to the table] — However, y’see, I’ve got this pride in my nautre. When I live with a person I love and care for in my life, I expect his respect, and when I see I’ve lost it, I GO, GO! — So a home on wheels is the only right home for me.
