The Books: “Something Cloudy, Something Clear” (Tennessee Williams)

Next script on the shelf:

Next (AND LAST – OH MY GOD) Tennessee Williams play on the shelf is a full-length play called Something Cloudy, Something Clear.

This is a big moment. It’s my last Tennessee Williams play that I own. It’s also the last play that he wrote. (One of the leads in my show right now originated the main role in the original production. Cool stories here.) Produced by the Jean Cocteau Rep here in New York in 1981, it was not a critical success. Once again: Williams would not be forgiven for not writing Streetcar again. It’s ridiculous – if you take these plays AS IS, and try to forget Streetcar, etc., – they are STILL startlingly good, and better than most crapola written by most playwrights. That’s one of the curses of early success. The fact that critics were not only indifferent toward his later work, but also – somehow personally insulted – as though he, personally, had let them down – crushed Tennessee. And yet – he couldn’t change himself. He couldn’t write for them. He wouldn’t. But the repercussions of not playing along with people’s expectations were harsh.

Something Cloudy, Something Clear is the play of an old playwright. He is nearing the end of his life. He is looking back. He is self-reflective. A 78 year old playwright probably would not write Streetcar – that is the play of a young vibrant man.

Something Cloudy, Something Clear is the most blatantly autobiographical Williams ever got. Actual people he knew wander through the play – he is in it – only his name is August – but old lovers make appearances, Hazel (a real person) – his childhood sweetheart, who guessed he was gay long before he did – Tallulah Bankhead (whom he idolized, and whom he wrote a play for) – his producers – etc.

It takes place on Provincetown – a place Tennessee discovered in 1940 when he spent a crazy and beautiful summer there. The 1940 summer was enough for him, he kept going back to Provincetown til the end of his life. It was a place of refreshment, renewal – but also, judging from this play – a place where the past had a way of creeping up on you and overwhelming the present. That’s what the play is about.

Everyone in the play is dead, except for the main character – August. He is haunted by all those from his past. But they go back into the past, and re-enact it – and occasionally stop and speak to one another, from the present moment: “God, we were so young then …” or “How DID you know my name?” etc. It’s very very sad. I’m trying to imagine going back in time to when I was young and vibrant and alive – say, my first summer in Chicago – and re-enacting all of that stuff – and yet now, with retrospect – there would be a lot of sadness in it …

Past and present intertwined. Now this was a theme that always interested Tennessee, obviously – he was always a man who was RUNNING from his past (but thank God for his gift – he was able to put that into his work – otherwise, he might have just become psychotic like his sister) – but in this one, I don’t know … I mean, I can feel that this is a playwright looking at his own death – and not only that – but looking at his own legacy.

August – the main character – is a playwright. In the 1940 version of events, he is working on his first play – he has big backers for it – and he keeps getting letters from them asking him to “change” the last act. He is tormented by this. (Funny – I was just bitching about Reality Bites below and this play has some of the same themes. Only – it’s written by an adult – a man who actually LIVED all of that – art vs. commerce was very very real to Tennessee Williams in particular – because of the nature of his plays – he was always being censored, or being asked to tone things down, etc.) He meets two characters – Clare and Kip. Clare is a wonderful character – the only fictional one in the play – she acts as August’s conscience. She tells him to not give up, to not compromise. Kip is a dancer, his idol is Nijinsky (he is a real person – that Tennessee knew) – only he has a brain tumor. He is losing his balance. He is a gorgeous speciment of man. August wants him. Clare is in love with Kip (although they pretend to be brother and sister – Kip is also a draft-dodger from Canada – remember, it’s 1940) – but he knows that Kip needs to be taken care of … so maybe August can take care of him?

August has a cataract in one eye (as did Tennessee Williams) – so one eye is cloudy, one eye is clear. The dual nature of things. One of the main images in the play is double exposure: vision being doubled by things like brain tumors, cataracts – but also the past wandering through the present, being haunted by your younger selves … double exposure. Things happening simultaneously.

This is Tennessee Williams’ last play.

Amazing. An amazing man with an amazing life’s work.

I’ll post part of the beginning scene with Clare and August. Clare wanders into August’s beach shack. Notice how they go in and out of the past. It’s like that killer last scene in Eternal Sunshine when they “re-enact” their first meeting.

From Something Cloudy, Something Clear, by Tennessee Williams

CLARE. Oh, I’m sorry. I’m interrupting your work.

AUGUST. You did me a favor by that. I was about to make a concession to the taste of someone else, a powerful man with practically no taste.

CLARE. Then why were you about to make the concession?

AUGUST. Because there are certain vital necessities such as money on which to survive.

CLARE. I think any kind of artist — but never mind – my presumption — I’m — breathless —

AUGUST. You do seem breathless.

CLARE. No, no, just — an argument with my brother.

AUGUST. Breathtaking, is he? — Sit down.

CLARE. On what?

AUGUST. Chair or the –?

CLARE. That cot’s a mess.

AUGUST. I’m a restless sleeper.

CLARE. I was about to offer a moral judgment of some kind.

AUGUST. [smoothing covers] On disorderly cots?

CLARE. No, not cots. Concessions in art, no less. [She clears her throat] You resume your seat while I —

AUGUST. Pontificate?

CLARE. I think.

AUGUST. Do you? Are you sure that you’re thinking?

CLARE. [ with sudden urgency] Not yet!

AUGUST. [smiling slowly] The double exposure. You’re right. I concede that point.

KIP. [at the window, interrupting] Excuse me.

CLARE. What is it, Kip? Oh, Kip, this is —

KIP. [extending his hand through the window] Oh. Yes, we met last night. Do you have any drinking water in here?

AUGUST. A bottle of tepid soda.

KIP. Fine. Anything wet but not salty.

CLARE. [to Kip] I’m about to deliver a lecture to him on making concessions in art.

KIP. For or against?

CLARE. I think any kind of artist — a painter like Van Gogh, a dancer like Nijinsky —

AUGUST. Both of them went mad.

CLARE. But others didn’t, refused to make concessions to bad taste and yet managed survival without losing their minds. That’s purity. You’ve got to respect it or not.

AUGUST. I do, I will. But it will be years before I’ve mastered the craft of my work. I’ll try to survive the time till then.

CLARE. You’re young and strong and healthy. I don’t know your talent, but if you do and it’s good — forget concessions.

AUGUST. You have a rather precocious — knowledge of such things.

CLARE. Had to have that, exigency of —

AUGUST. — Survival?

CLARE. Had to have that early.

AUGUST. Why so early?

CLARE. My family in Newport, Rhode Island, were shocked by my lack of the conventions they valued too much.

KIP. Wow! I’ll continue my exercises. [He returns to the platform. Over the following he begins a series of slow, lyrical warmup exercises which will blend gracefully, later, into the pavane]

CLARE. So — I learned to outwit them precociously, had no other option.

AUGUST. I’ll make many mistakes but they’ll be my own mistakes, I’ll never concede to manipulation by —

CLARE. Don’t — don’t ever. In the end you’ll take pride in having never.

AUGUST. We can delude ourselves, you know, now and then. Let’s — drop this subject of why —

CLARE. Yes. A heavy subject. I just came in to ask you if it’s all right to use your platform out there as a —

AUGUST. I don’t own anything here but the typewriter and paper, and this little assortment of records for my silver Victrola. I’m — just a squatter. [He is pouring rum drinks into two glasses. Outside, the light lowers as Kip continues his slow, lyrical movements]

CLARE. [as August offers her the rum] None of that for me, August.

AUGUST. You know my name?

CLARE. You don’t remember meeting me last night on the wharf?

AUGUST. You knew I did. But people seldom remember last night’s names.

CLARE. What’s my name?

AUGUST. Yours is Clare and your brother is Kip. Sure you won’t have a drink?

CLARE. I can’t. I have diabetes.

AUGUST. I thought only middle-aged people had diabetes.

CLARE. I’m sorry to say there’s such a thing as congenital diabetes and I’ve got it.

AUGUST. I never heard of it, you look very healthy to me.

CLARE. Hmmmm. — Doesn’t it rain in, without any window panes or door to close?

AUGUST. Oh, sure. But I have this tarpaulin that I put over the cot, and I put my portable typewriter and silver Victrola under the platform out there.

CLARE. You’re a playwright. You told me that last night.

AUGUST. I write plays. Stories. Poems. Right now it’s a play, yes. I was about to make a change in it that I didn’t believe in when you called through the window, like my — like a — conscience?

CLARE. Don’t you ever look at people directly when you talk to them?

AUGUST. Not unless I’m drink.

CLARE. Why?

AUGUST. Why?

CLARE. Uh-hmmm.

AUGUST. Because I’m getting a little walleyed and — a little dishonest, I guess.

CLARE. If you were dishonest, you wouldn’t make such an honest confession of it.

AUGUST. [looking out] Beautiful dancer, your brother.

CLARE. YOu met him on the wharf last night, too.

AUGUST. I know, but — I was blind last night.

CLARE. [with an edge] Not too blind to stare at him like a bird dog at a — quail.

AUGUST. [turning to smile at her] No. No, not too blind for that. Well. He seemed oblivious to my attention, so I turned it on a much less attractive object, a drunk merchant sailor at the bar. He was a dog, in comparison, a mongrel dog. However. Beggars can’t be very particular in their — choices, you know, and — beautiful as it is out here, it’s also very lonely out here at night. [He goes to the victrola, places a record on it, and winds it up]

CLARE. You have a strange voice.

AUGUST. Are you sure you hear it? [We hear the record, Ravel’s “Pavane pour une infante defunte.”]

CLARE. It isn’t as clear as it was, that summer.

AUGUST. Forty years ago, Clare.

CLARE. [closing her eyes for a moment] I feel — lightheaded. Is it deja vu?

AUGUST. You said not yet.

KIP. [from the platform] Not yet! [He clasps his head]

AUGUST. Artists always continue a theme with variations. If lucky, several themes with numerous variations.

CLARE. But they mustn’t get tiresome.

AUGUST. Must take a chance on that as making concessions.

CLARE. [turning her head in sudden anguish] That, oh, I know that!

AUGUST. You should, you heard it often on my silver Victrola that summer of —

CLARE. Please. Don’t name the summer.

AUGUST. Life turned upon that summer.

CLARE. [fiercely derisive] Moth around a —

AUGUST. [indicating Kip through the window] Flame!

CLARE. Stop! Are you cruel? August?

AUGUST. I’d rather be cruel than sentimental, Clare.

CLARE. Nothing in between for you?

AUGUST. Yes, yes, naturally much. You know if you remember. [He tenderly clasps her head between his hands a moment]

CLARE. Dead princesses don’t remember their pavanes on your silver Victrola. Is it as bad to die when you’re young as Kip and I were and even you were that summer? Tell me. You’ve lived to discover an answer.

AUGUST. To live as long as forty years after that ecstasy … It’s enough to reconcile you to exile, at last, to the dark side of the moon or to the unfathomably dark hole in space.

CLARE. Perhaps you, perhaps he —

AUGUST. Perhaps I’ve transfigured him in my memory? [He stares out the window at Kip] No. I’ve memorized him, exactly as he was.

CLARE. This is the summer of 1940, August. Let’s drop the metaphysics, play it straight, play it not like summer long past, but as it was then.

AUGUST. Then! Yes! But I’m no prompter, you have to remember your lines.

[A pause]

CLARE. [as if awaking] — Why do you keep everything under the platform?

AUGUST. Under the floor of a next-door shack blown away.

CLARE. Why do you hide your valuables beneath it?

AUGUST. I don’t always do that.

CLARE. Why do you ever do it?

AUGUST. Well, now and then, I have visitors out here.

CLARE. Thieves?

AUGUST. Potentially, yes. And what would I do if I lost my portable typewriter and my silver Victrola?

CLARE. I see. Mmmmm. Did you hear our conversation out there? [The sea booms. He grins without looking at her. She smiles slowly] My brother discovered that platform out there to dance on. I wouldn’t have known he was here if I hadn’t found his footprints in the dunes, pointing this way. He’s very peculiar, my brother.

AUGUST. And very beautiful, too.

CLARE. Oh, that he is, too, he’s that. If he wasn’t my brother he’d drive me out of my mind.

AUGUST. He looks like the young Nijinsky.

CLARE. I’ll tell him you said that. You see, Nijinsky’s his god, his idol.

AUGUST. So he’s reproduced the young Nijinsky for us. He has terrific control of his body. Is he a professional dancer?

CLARE. He’s never danced professionally, but he’s studied dancing.

AUGUST. You don’t look like each other, there’s no family resemblance.

CLARE. No.

AUGUST. You’re both beautiful but in totally different ways.

CLARE. Oh, not totally, thank you.

AUGUST. Excuse me. I’m going back to work now. Without concessions, maybe.

CLARE. How long will you go on working?

AUGUST. Till I die of exhaustion. — But not now. [Pause] No, a long time from now. Today I’d rather watch Kip dance.

CLARE. I dance, too.

AUGUST. I noticed that last night.

CLARE. I thought you just noticed Kip. When you stare at Kip like you stared at him last night, you’re not seeing into his —

AUGUST. Mind? Spirit? Look, I work myself to the point of self-immolation before I go into P-town and honestly Clare, I don’t go looking for rarefied minds or spirits.

CLARE. Have you got a toilet, I need to puke, I’m —

AUGUST. Ocean or dunes.

CLARE. Never mind. [She sinks to her knees, head bowed. August kneels behind her, raising her head tenderly. Her eyes moisten with tears]

AUGUST. I knew you cared for him, Clare, very deeply, and didn’t want him used.

CLARE. I didn’t want his body violated, to satisfy yours.

AUGUST. Clare, you have to know a person intimately, sometimes for al ong time, to know about his mind, sometimes even slightly.

CLARE. I trust intuition about it. And in Kip’s case, I had the advantage of knowing him in New York under special circumstances that — [They are both looking out the window at Kip. He had been performing slow dance exercises then he abruptly lost his balance and lowered himself awkwardly to the platform with a dazed look. Clare draws a startled breath. The music stops suddenly as Kip falls]

AUGUST. What happened?

CLARE. You offered me a drink.

AUGUST. You said you —

CLARE. I’d like a bit of it, now. Something happened to Kip on the platform, he — he stumbled.

AUGUST. Some of the boards onj that platform sag a little. [He hands her the drink]