Next script on the shelf:
Next Tennessee Williams play on the shelf is called A Lovely Sunday for Creve Coeur, included in 27 Wagons Full of Cotton And Other One-Act Plays
Another one of Williams’ late full-length plays. These plays were not commercial successes – and there are flaws in them – unlike Cat on a Hot Tin Roof or Streetcar which – I think – are pretty much without flaws. But Williams’ late plays are no less wonderful. People could not forgive him for not writing Streetcar II over and over and over. I admire him MORE that he didn’t go that route. He kept creating, kept writing … and like he said once: “I keep writing … Sometimes I like what I write. That’s enough.”
Creve Coeur had its premiere in 1979.
It’s quite wonderful. I would love to play Dorothea. She’s a great part. She’s in the Miss Alma vein of Williams females. The play takes place in the 1930s in St. Louis. The mores are different than, obviously, what was going on in 1979. The spectre of spinsterhood hung over women like a sharp sword. A fate worse than death. Also: no possibility of experiencing sexual pleasure without being completely shamed by society. You HAD to get married … or you were beyond the pale. What were passionate and … kind of “off” women … supposed to do? This is Williams’ main milieu. Today, Miss Alma would not have had to make such a horrendous choice. A mild dose of Prozac, and a couple of love affairs … and she might have been all right. Being unmarried at age 30 isn’t seen as an utter tragedy. That sort of pressure doesn’t exist anymore, thank God – at least not with as much intensity.
The two main characters are Bodey and Dorothea. They are roommates. Obviously spinster women. Upstairs lives Sophie Gluck, a baffled German woman who speaks no English and just hangs out in Bodey and Dorothea’s apartment. Bodey has an incredibly intense and weird relationship with her twin brother Buddy. Every Sunday they make a picnic and go have it at a park called Creve Coeur. Buddy (who is not in the play) sounds like a big doofus. All he does is drink beer, smoke cigars, and eat sausages. Buddy and Bodey are Germans – that is a big deal in the play, because it takes place in the 30s. They are proud Germans, and they deal with a lot of generalized prejudice. People saying, “Isn’t that just like the Huns….” etc. Dorothea is a teacher of civics at the local high school. She is a nervous wreck. Every day she exercises like a fiend in her room, even though she has some kind of nervous condition. The play opens and she is feverishly doing knee bends in the corner, nearly passing out from exertion. Dorothea is having an affair with the principal, Ralph Ellis. Now – again with Williams – you get the sense that the REALITY of the situation is that Dorothea is MADLY IN LOVE with him, in a kind of schoolgirl way, and one night (which she describes in the most romantic way possible) – Ralph screwed her in the back seat of his car. It was a one-time deal. But to Dorothea it was EVERYTHING. Dorothea has constructed an elaborate fantasy around Ralph. She doesn’t just HOPE that he will marry her. It is GOING to happen. It is REAL to her. She is making plans based on this fantasy. He is her way out. Williams is brilliant in this regard. What was, in reality, something that sounds very cheap and gross – an asshole cheating on his wife with someone he KNOWS is in love with him- is interpreted by one of the characters into something magical, powerful, and redemptive. Of course this sets up the inevitable life-crushing disillusionment in the end. It’s not just a relationship that ends. It’s an entire dream that dies. The future closes shut like a door. It’s final.
You can tell that this play takes place in the past. Pre sexual revolution. Dorothea has slept with a man out of wedlock. He was her only lover. He HAS to marry her.
Anyway – Helena, another teacher at the school, shows up one morning – when Bodey is busy packing her picnic for Creve Coeur. Helena is there to check up on Dorothea who has planned to move into an apartment with Helena – a nicer one – where she hopes she will be able to ‘entertain’ Ralph Ellis. This new apartment is a stepping-stone to respectability, to marriage. Dorothea has not informed Bodey that she is moving out.
Oh, and to add to all of this: Bodey is relentless in trying to get Dorothea set up with her fat doofus brother. Dorothea continues to insist that she is seriously involved with someone. Bodey is kind of an idiot, and never shuts up, but she’s not stupid. She knows that Ralph Ellis is a jerk, and that Dorothea was just used. She holds out hope that Dorothea will fall in love with her brother, even though Dorothea finds him repulsive.
Dorothea has a fantasy for herself, where she belongs in life. She can’t be the wife of a big gross farting German. This would not suit her. She has her standards – but sadly, her time has passed. She is no longer young. She will now no longer have her pick of men. She will have to accept that Buddy is the best that she will be able to get. In Tennessee Williams’ world, this is a tragedy.
I’ll excerpt the end of the play – when all of the illusions shatter for Dorothea. Bodey has seen in the Sunday paper that Ralph Ellis has gotten engaged. She tears the notice out and throws it out, hiding it from Dorothea. In this last scene, all is discovered.
Good times, good times.
From A Lovely Sunday for Creve Coeur, by Tennessee Williams
BODEY. Dotty, remember, Buddy is waiting for us at the Creve Coeur station, we mustn’t let him think we’ve stood him up.
DOROTHEA. [sighing] Excuse me, Helena, there really has been a terrible problem with communication today. [She crosses to Bodey and adjusts her hearing aid for her] Can you hear me clearly, now at last?
BODEY. You got something to tell me?
DOROTHEA. Something I’ve told you already, frequently, loudly, and clearly, but which you simply will not admit because of your hostility toward Ralph Ellis. I’m waiting here to receive an important call from him, and I am not going anywhere till it’s come through.
BODEY. Dotty. It’s past noon and he still hasn’t called.
DOROTHEA. On Saturday evenings he’s out late at social affairs and consequently sleeps late on Sundays.
BODEY. This late?
HELENA. Miss Bodenhafer doesn’t know how the privileged classes live.
BODEY. No, I guess not, we’re ignorant of the history of art, but Buddy and me, we’ve got a life going on, you understand, we got a life …
DOROTHEA. Bodey, you know I’m sorry to disappoint your plans for the Creve Coeur picninc, but you must realize by now — after our conversation before Miss Brookmire dropped in — that I can’t allow this well-meant design of yours to get me involved with your brother to go any further. So that even if I were not expecting this important phone call, I would not go to Creve Coeur with you and your brother this afternoon — or ever! It wouldn’t be fair to your brother to, to — lead him on that way …
BODEY. Well, I did fry up three chickens and I boiled a dozen eggs, but, well, that’s —
HELENA. Life for you, Miss Bodenhafer. We’ve got to face it.
BODEY. But I really was hoping — expecting —
[Tears appear in Bodey’s large, childlike eyes]
HELENA. Dorothea, I believe she’s beginning to weep over this. Say something comforting to her.
DOROTHEA. Bodey? Bodey? This afternoon you must break the news to your brother that — much as I appreciate his attentions — I am seriously involved with someone else, and I think you can do this without hurting his feelings. Let him have some beer first and a — cigar … And about this superabundance of chicken and deviled eggs. Bodey, why don’t you call some girl who works in your office and get her to go to Creve Coeur and enjoy the picnic with you this afternoon?
BODEY. Buddy and I, we — don’t have fun with — strangers …
DOROTHEA. Now, how can you call them strangers when you’ve been working in the same office with these girls at International Shoe for — how many years? Almost twenty? Strangers? Still?
BODEY. — Not all of ’em have been there long as me … [She blows her nose]
DOROTHEA. Oh, some of them must have, surely, unless the death rate in the office is higher than — a cat’s back.
[Dorothea smiles half-apologetically at Helena. Helena stifles a malicious chuckle]
BODEY. — You see, Dotty, Buddy and me feel so at home with you now.
DOROTHEA. Bodey, we knew that I was here just for a while because it’s so close to Blewett. Please don’t make me feel guilty. I have no reasons to, do I?
BODEY. — No, no, Dotty — but don’t worry about it. Buddy and me, we are both — big eaters, and if there’s somethin’ left over, there’s always cute little children around Creve Coeur that we could share with, Dotty, so —
DOROTHEA. Yes, there must be. Do that. Let’s not prolong this discussion. I see it’s painful to you.
BODEY. — Do you? No. It’s — you I’m thinking of, Dotty. — Now if for some reason you should change your mind, here is the schedule of the open-air streetcars to Creve Coeur.
HELENA. Yellowing with antiquity. Is it legible still?
BODEY. We’ll still be hoping that you might decide to join us, you know that, Dotty.
DOROTHEA. Yes, of course — I know that. Now why don’t you finish packing and start out to the station?
BODEY. — Yes. — But remember how welcome you would be if — shoes. [She starts into the bedroom to put on her shoes] I still have my slippers on.
DOROTHEA. [to Helena after Bodey has gone into the bedroom] So! You’ve got the postdated check. I will move to Westmoreland Place with you July first, although I’ll have to stretch quite a bit to make ends meet in such an expensive apartment.
HELENA. Think of the advantages. A fashionable address, two bedrooms, a baby grand in the front room and —
DOROTHEA. Yes, I know. It would be a very good place to entertain Ralph.
HELENA. I trust that entertaining Ralph is not your only motive in making this move to Westmoreland Place.
DOROTHEA. Not the only, but the principal one.
HELENA. [leaning forward slowly, eyes widening] Oh, my dear Dorothea! I have the very odd feeling that I saw the name Ralph Ellis in the newspaper. In the society section.
DOROTHEA. In the society section?
HELENA. I think so, yes. I’m sure so.
[Rising tensely, Dorothea locates the Sunday paper which Bodey had left on the sofa, in some disarray, after removing the “certain item” — the society page. She hurriedly looks through the various sections trying to find the society news]
DOROTHEA. Bodey? — BOOO-DEYY!
BODEY. What, Dotty?
DOROTHEA. Where is the society page of the Post-Dispatch?
BODEY. — Oh …
DOROTHEA. What does “oh” mean? It’s disappeared from the paper and I’d like to know where.
BODEY. Dotty, I —
DOROTHEA. What’s wrong with you? Why are you upset? I just want to know if you’ve seen the society page of the Sunday paper?
BODEY. — Why, I — used to to wrap fried chicken up with, honey.
DOROTHEA. [to Helena] The only part of the paper in which I have any interest. She takes it and wraps fried chicken in it before I get up in the morning! You see what I mean? Do you understand now? [She turns back to Bodey] Please remove the fried chicken from the society page and let me have it!
BODEY. — Honey, the chicken makes the paper so greasy that —
DOROTHEA. I will unwrap it myself! [She charges into the kitchenette, unwraps the chicken, and folds out the section of pages] — A section has been torn out of it? Why? What for?
BODEY. Is it? I —
DOROTHEA. Nobody possibly could have done it but you. What did you do with the torn out piece of the paper?
BODEY. — I — [She shakes her head helplessly]
DOROTHEA. Here it is! — Crumpled and tossed in the wastebasket! — What for, I wonder? [She snatches up the crumpled paper from the wastebasket and straightens it, using both palms to press it hard against the kitchen table so as to flatten it. She holds up the torn-out section of the paper so the audience can see a large photograph of a young woman, good looking in a plain fashion, wearing a hard smile of triumph, then she reads aloud in a hoarse, stricken voice] Mr. and Mrs. James Finley announce the engagement of their daughter, Miss Constance Finley, to Mr. — T. Ralph Ellis, principal of —
[Pause. There is much stage business. Dorothea is stunned for some moments but then comes to violent life and action. She picks up the picnic shoebox, thrusts it fiercely into Bodey’s hands, opens the door for her but rushes back to pick up Bodey’s small black straw hat trimmed with paper daisies, then opens the door for Bodey again with a violent gesture meaning “Go quick!” Bodey goes. In the hall we hear various articles falling from Bodey’s hold and a small panting gasp. Then there is silence. Helena gets up with a mechanical air of sympathy]
HELENA. That woman is sly all right but not as sly as she’s stupid. She might have guessed you’d want the society page and notice Mr. Ellis’ engagement had been torn out. Anyway, the news would have reached you at the school tomorrow. Of course I can’t understand how you could be taken in by whatever little attentions you may have received from Ralph Ellise.
DOROTHEA. — “Little — attentions?” I assure you they were not — “little attentions”, they were —
HELENA. Little attentions which you magnified in your imagination. Well, now, let us dismiss the matter, which has dismissed itself! Dorothea, about the postdated check, I’m not sure the real estate agents would be satisfied with that. Now surely, Dorothea, surely you have relatives who could help you with a down payment in cash?
DOROTHEA. — Helena, I’m not interested in Westmoreland Place. — Now.
HELENA. What?
DOROTHEA. I’ve — abandoned that idea. I’ve decided not to move.
HELENA. [aghast] — Do you realize what a shockingly irresponsible thing you are doing? Don’t you realize that you are placing me in a very unfair position? You led me to believe I could count on your sharing the expense of the place, and now, at the last moment, when I have no time to get hold of someone else, you suddenly — pull out. It’s really irresponsible for you. It’s a really very irresponsible thing to do.
DOROTHEA. — I’m afraid we wouldn’t have really gotten along together. I’m not uncomfortable here. It’s only two blocks from the school and — I won’t be needing a place I can’t afford to entertain — anyone now. — I think I would like to be alone.
HELENA. All I can say is, the only thing I can say is —
DOROTHEA. Don’t say it, just, just — leave me alone, now, Helena.
HELENA. Well, that I shall do. You may be right, we wouldn’t have gotten along. Perhaps Miss Bodenhafer and her twin brother are much more on your social and cultural level than I’d hoped. And of course there’s always the charm of Miss Gluck from upstairs.
DOROTHEA. The prospect of that is not as dismaying to me, Helena, as the little card parties and teas you’d had in mind for us on Westmoreland Place …
HELENA. Chacun a son gout.
DOROTHEA. Yes, yes.
HELENA. [at the door] There is rarely a graceful way to say goodbye. [She exits]
[Pause. Dorothea shuts her eyes very tight and raises a clenched hand in the air, nodding her head several times as if affirming an unhappy suspicion regarding the way of the world. This gesture suffices to discharge her sense of defeat. Now she springs up determinedly and gets to the phone. While waiting for a connection, she notices Miss Gluck seated disconsolately in a corner of the kitchenette]
DOROTHEA. Now Miss Gluck, now Sophie, we must pull ourselves together and go on. Go on, we must just go on, that’s all that life seems to offer and –demand. [She turns her attention to the phone] Hello, operator, can you get me information, please? — Hello? Information? Can you get me the number of the little station at the end of the Delmar car-line where you catch the, the — open streetcar that goes out to Creve Coeur Lake? — Thank you.
MISS GLUCK. [speaking English with difficulty and a heavy German accent] Please don’t leave me alone. I can’t go up!
DOROTHEA. [her attention still occupied with the phone] Creve Coeur car-line station? Look. On the platform in a few minutes will be a plumpish little woman with a big artificial flower over one ear and a stoutish man with her, probably with a cigar. I have to get an important message to them. Tell them that Dotty called and has decided to go to Creve Coeur with them after all so will they please wait. You’ll have to shout to the woman because she’s — deaf … [For some reason the word “deaf” chokes her and she begins to sob as she hangs up the phone. Miss Gluck rises, sobbing louder] No, no, Sophie, come here. [Impulsively she draws Miss Gluck into her arms] I know, Sophie, I know, crying is a release, but it — inflames the eyes. [She takes Miss Gluck to the armchair and seaets her there. Then she goes to the kitchenette, gets a cup of coffee and a cruller, and brings them to Sophie.] Make yourself comfortable, Sophie. [She goes to the bedroom, gets a pair of gloves, then returns and crosses to the kitchen table to collect her hat and pocketbook. She goes to the door, opens it, and says …] We’ll be back before dark.
THE LIGHTS DIM OUT.
