{"id":3735,"date":"2005-10-16T08:04:06","date_gmt":"2005-10-16T12:04:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=3735"},"modified":"2024-10-27T22:01:45","modified_gmt":"2024-10-28T02:01:45","slug":"the-books-suddenly-last-summer-tennessee-williams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=3735","title":{"rendered":"The Books: \u201cSuddenly Last Summer\u201d (Tennessee Williams)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Next in my Daily Book Excerpt:<\/p>\n

Next on my script shelf:<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\"SummerandSmoke.jpg\"Next Tennessee Williams play on the shelf is Suddenly Last Summer<\/i>, included in The Theatre of Tennessee Williams, Vol. 3: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof \/ Orpheus Descending \/ Suddenly Last Summer<\/a>\"\"<\/i>.<\/p>\n

This play is really really gross. Topics touched on: lobotomies, cannibalism, insect-eating plants, sickness, decay, the filth of poverty … that’s just a short list. It’s a hard play to take – it’s a vision of horror. As I’m sure many of you know, Tennessee Williams’ sister Rose was institutionalized (her story is such a tragic one – and it’s like you can see Tennessee working it all out in his work over the years – Rose is always there in his work – think about The Glass Menagerie<\/i> and Streetcar<\/i> and all the others – He admitted it to himself: He wrote out of a sense of guilt, panic, and desperation – that somehow he had “escaped” while his dear sister Rose was “trapped”…) Anyway, Rose was eventually given a lobotomy. Tennessee was far away, in New York, when he got the news that his sister had had “an operation”. How frightening. There’s just something so brutal about it.<\/p>\n

And in Suddenly Last Summer <\/em>– Tennessee took on the topic of lobotomies head-on, for the first and only time. In the play, Catherine – the young woman threatened with a lobotomy if she doesn’t change her story – has to fight for her life – literally – has to fight with the powers that be to first of all believe her incredible story – and also, to let her have horrible memories. To not insist that her brain be cleaned up, cauterized. That’s one of the themes of the play: there is horror in this world. Cruelty. Betrayal. Poverty. Let’s look at it head on. Let’s not escape it. The lobotomy is a potential escape. How wonderful it would be to have those awful memories cut out of the brain!! Yes, but would it? What price do you pay when you choose oblivion and peace?<\/p>\n

These questions had particular poignancy for Tennessee Williams.<\/p>\n

So. The plot: Mrs. Venable (played by Katharine Hepburn in the film) has this whole elaborate fantasy wrapped about her son Sebastian (who is dead – died recently). The two of them were a pair – they traveled the world together – etc. etc. Until “last summer” – when Mrs. Venable became ill and couldn’t go abroad with him – so he took his cousin Catherine instead. And while touring Europe with Catherine, something terrible happened. He was killed in a small town in … Spain, I think. Catherine told the tale to the police, returned home, told the tale to Mrs. Venable – who promptly put her in an institution, and set the lobotomy wheels in motion. Mrs. Venable, a true fantasist, refuses to believe the tale that Catherine tells. She must have the tale “cut out of her brain”. She cannot live without her fantasy of who her son was. Catherine’s tale is that Sebastian had been pursued down the street by a roving band of desperate poverty-struck children – and they eventually caught up with him, and tore him to pieces, and devoured him. Literally. They ate Sebastien alive.<\/p>\n

So – the basic plot structure of the book is Catherine defending her story to Dr. Sugar (played by Montgomery Clift in the film) – he is the one she needs to convince, because he is a lobotomy expert. He is one of its pioneers. He has been hired by Mrs. Venable to examine Catherine, and see if she is lying. More than anything, Mrs. Venable wants Catherine to stop telling the awful tale, to stop “blabbing”.<\/p>\n

The other thing that becomes apparent as Catherine tells her tale – is that Sebastien was not the golden-boy that Mrs. Venable remembers – we all remember things the way we want them to. It slowly becomes clear that Sebastien was actually a high-class gay gigolo (Mrs. Venable is completely unaware of this). He would always travel with good-looking women – so that he could attract male attention. Mrs. Venable doesn’t realize that Sebastien was just a user – using his own mother – and that once she fell ill, she was no longer any use to him. – but Catherine picks up on it right away. Mrs. Venable insists that Catherine is just a crazy lying slut – that Sebastien wasn’t like that at all. He was actually pure – above earthly cares – didn’t need the love of anyone other than his own mother. But Catherine knew Sebastien didn’t care about her – that she was there like honey for the bees. Let the men come close … so that Sebastien could then pounce on them.<\/p>\n

The whole story is completely grotesque – a bit hard to take … but there is some startlingly good writing in it. Catherine has one of my favorite monologues in all of Williams’ work – the one that starts: “Suddenly last winter I started writing in my journal in the third person”.<\/p>\n

I’ll excerpt a bit from the opening scene – which is between Mrs. Venable and the doctor. In it, Mrs. Venable tells her version of Sebastien – the version that she insists is the true version, the only version that should be allowed to exist.<\/p>\n


\nEXCERPT FROM Suddenly Last Summer<\/i>, included in The Theatre of Tennessee Williams, Vol. 3: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof \/ Orpheus Descending \/ Suddenly Last Summer<\/a>\"\"<\/i> by Tennessee Williams<\/b><\/p>\n

DOCTOR. Don’t you want to sit down now?<\/p>\n

MRS. VENABLE. Yes, indeed I do, before I fall down. (He assists her into wheelchair<\/i>) –Are your hind-legs still on you?<\/p>\n

DOCTOR. (still concerned over her agitation<\/i>) — My what? Oh — hind-legs! — Yes …<\/p>\n

MRS. VENABLE. Well, then you’re not a donkey, you’re certainly not a donkey because I’ve been talking the hind-legs off a donkey — several donkeys … But I had to make it clear to you that the world lost a great deal too when I lost my son last summer … You would have liked my son, he would have been charmed by you. My son, Sebastian, was not a family snob or a money snob but he was a snob, all right. He was a snob about personal charm in people, he insisted on good looks in people around him, and, oh, he had a perect little court of young and beautiful people around him, always, wherever he was, here in New Orleans or New York or on the Riviera or in Paris and Venice, he always had a little entourage of the beautiful and the talented and the young!<\/p>\n

DOCTOR. Your son was young, Mrs. Venable?<\/p>\n

MRS. VENABLE. Both of us were young, and stayed young, Doctor.<\/p>\n

DOCTOR. Could I see a photograph of your son, Mrs. Venable?<\/p>\n

MRS. VENABLE. Yes, indeed you could, Doctor. I’m glad that you asked to see one. I’m going to show you not one photograph but two. Here. Here is my son, Sebastian, in a Renaissance pageboy’s costume at a masked ball in Cannes. Here is my son, Sebastian, in the same costume at a masked ball in Venice. These two pictures were taken twenty years apart. Now which is the older one, Doctor?<\/p>\n

DOCTOR. This photograph looks older.<\/p>\n

MRS. VENABLE. The photograph looks older but not the subject. It takes character to refuse to grow old, Doctor — successfully to refuse to. It calls for discipline, abstention. One cocktail before dinner, not two, four, six — a single lean chop and lime juice on a salad in restaurants famed or rich dishes.<\/p>\n

(Foxhill comes from the house<\/i>)<\/p>\n

FOXHILL. Mrs. Venable, Miss Holly’s mother and brother are —<\/p>\n

(Simultaneously Mrs. Holly and George appear in the window<\/i>)<\/p>\n

GEORGE. Hi, Aunt Vi!<\/p>\n

MRS. HOLLY. Violet dear, we’re here.<\/p>\n

FOXHILL. They’re here.<\/p>\n

MRS. VENABLE. Wait upstairs in my upstairs living room for me. (to Foxhill<\/i>) Get them upstairs. I don’t want them at that window during this talk. (to the Doctor<\/i>) Let’s get away from the window. (He wheels her away<\/i>)<\/p>\n

DOCTOR. Mrs. Venable? Did your son have a — well — what kind of a personal<\/i>, well, private<\/i> life did —<\/p>\n

MRS. VENABLE. That’s a question I wanted you to ask me.<\/p>\n

DOCTOR. Why?<\/p>\n

MRS. VENABLE. I haven’t heard the girl’s story except indirectly in a watered-down version, being too ill to go to hear it directly, but I’ve gathered enough to know that it’s a hideous attack on my son’s moral character which, being dead, he can’t deend himself from. I have to be the defender. Now. Sit down. Listen to me … (the Doctor sits<\/i>) … beore you hear whatever you’re going to hear from the girl when she gets here. My son, Sebastian, was chaste. Not c-h-a-s-e-d! Oh, he was chased in that way of spelling it, too, we had to very fleet-footed I can tell you, with his looks and his charm, to keep ahead of pursuers, every kind of pursuer! — I mean he was c-h-a-s-t-e! — Chaste ….<\/p>\n

DOCTOR. I understood what you meant, Mrs. Venable.<\/p>\n

MRS. VENABLE. And you believe<\/i> me, don’t you?<\/p>\n

DOCTOR. Yes, but —<\/p>\n

MRS. VENABLE. But what<\/i>?<\/p>\n

DOCTOR. Chastity at — what age was your son last summer?<\/p>\n

MRS. VENABLE. Forty<\/i>, maybe. We really didn’t count birthdays …<\/p>\n

DOCTOR. He lived a celibate life?<\/p>\n

MRS. VENABLE. As strictly as if he’d vowed<\/i> to! This sounds like vanity, Doctor, but really I was actually the only one in his life that satisfied the demands he made of people. Time after time my son would let people go, dismiss them! — because their, their, their! — attitude<\/i> toward him was —<\/p>\n

DOCTOR. Not pure as —<\/p>\n

MRS. VENABLE. My son, Sebastian, demanded! We were a famous couple. People didn’t speak of Sebastian and his mother or Mrs. Venable and her son, they said, “Sebastian and Violet, Violet and Sebastian are staying at the Lido, they’re at the Ritz in Madrid, Sebastian and Violet, Violet and Sebastian have taken a house at Biarritz for the season,” and every appearance, every time we appeared, attention was centered on us! — everyone else! Eclipsed!<\/i> Vanity? Ohhhh, no, Doctor, you can’t call it that —<\/p>\n

DOCTOR. I didn’t call it that.<\/p>\n

MRS. VENABLE. — It wasn’t folie de grandeur<\/i>, it was grandeur.<\/p>\n

DOCTOR. I see.<\/p>\n

MRS. VENABLE. An attitude toward life that’s hardly been known in the world since the great Renaissance princes were crowded out of their palaces and gardens by successful shopkeepers!<\/p>\n

DOCTOR. I see.<\/p>\n

MRS. VENABLE. Most people’s lives — what are they but trails of debris, each day more debris, more debris, long long trails of debris with nothing to clean it all up but, finally, death … (We hear lyric music<\/i>) My son Sebastian and I constructed our days, each day, we would — carve out each day of our lives like a piece of sculpture. — Yes, we left behind us a trail of days like a gallery of sculpture! But, last summer — (Pause. The music continues<\/i>) I can’t forgive him for it, not even now that he’s paid for it with his life! — he let in this — vandal<\/i>! This —<\/p>\n

DOCTOR. The girl that –?<\/p>\n

MRS. VENABLE. That you’re going to meet here this afternoon! Yes. He admitted this vandal and with her tongue for a hatchet she’s gone about smashing our legend, the memory of —<\/p>\n

DOCTOR. Mrs. Venable, what do you think is her reason?<\/p>\n

MRS. VENABLE. Lunatics don’t have reason!<\/p>\n

DOCTOR. I mean what do you think is her — motive?<\/p>\n

MRS. VENABLE. What a question! — We put the bread in her mouth and the clothes on her back. People that like you for that or even forgive you for it are, are — hen’s teeth<\/i>, Doctor. The role of the benefactor is worse than thankless, it’s the role of a victim, Doctor, a sacrificial victim, yes, they want your blood, Doctor, they want your blood on the altar steps of their outraged, outrageous<\/i> egos!<\/p>\n

DOCTOR. Oh. You mean she resented the —<\/p>\n

MRS. VENABLE. Loathed! — They can’t shut her up at St. Mary’s.<\/p>\n

DOCTOR. I thought she’d been there for months.<\/p>\n

MRS. VENABLE. I mean keep her still<\/i> there. She babbles<\/i>! They couldn’t shut her up in Cabeza de Lobo or at the clinic in Paris — she babbled, babbled! — smashing my son’s reputation. — On the Berengaria bringing her back to the States she broke out of the stateroom and babbled, babbled; even at the airport when she was flown down here, she babbled a bit of her story before they could whisk her into an ambulance to St. Mary’s. This is a reticule, Doctor. (She raises a cloth bag<\/i>) A catch-all carry-all bag for an elderly lady which I turned into last summer … Will you open it or me, my hands are stiff, and fish out some cigarettes and a cigarette holder. (He does<\/i>)<\/p>\n

DOCTOR. I don’t have matches.<\/p>\n

MRS. VENABLE. I think there’s a table-lighter on the table.<\/p>\n

DOCTOR. Yes, there is. (He lights it, it flames up high<\/i>) My Lord, what a torch!<\/p>\n

MRS. VENABLE. (with a sudden sweet smile<\/i>) “So shines a good deed in a naughty world,” Doctor — Sugar …<\/p>\n

(Pause. A bird sings sweetly<\/i>)<\/p>\n

DOCTOR. Mrs. Venable?<\/p>\n

MRS. VENABLE. Yes?<\/p>\n

DOCTOR. In your letter last week you made some reference to a, to a — fund of some kind, an endowment fund of —<\/p>\n

MRS. VENABLE. I wrote you that my lawyers and bankers and certified public accountants were setting up the Sebastian Venable Memorial Foundation to subsidize the work of young people like you that are pushing out the frontiers of art and science but have a financial problem. You have a financial problem, don’t you, Doctor?<\/p>\n

DOCTOR. Yes, we do have that problem. My work is such a new<\/i> and radical<\/i> thing that people in charge of state funds are naturally a little scared of it and keep us on a small budget, so small that — We need a separate ward for my patients, I need trained assistants, I’d like to marry a girl I can’t afford to marry! — But there’s also the problem of getting right patients, not just — criminal psychopaths that the State turns over to us for my operation! — because it’s — well — risky … I don’t want to turn you against my work at Lion’s View but I have to be honest with you. There is a good deal of risk in my operation. Whenever you enter the brain with a foreign object …<\/p>\n

MRS. VENABLE. Yes.<\/p>\n

DOCTOR. — Even a needle-thin knife …<\/p>\n

MRS. VENABLE. Yes.<\/p>\n

DOCTOR. — In a skilled surgeon’s fingers …<\/p>\n

MRS. VENABLE. Yes.<\/p>\n

DOCTOR. — There is a good deal of risk involved in — the operation …<\/p>\n

MRS. VENABLE. You said that it pacifies them, it quiets them down, it suddenly makes them peaceful.<\/p>\n

DOCTOR. Yes. It does that, that much we already know, but —<\/p>\n

MRS. VENABLE. What?<\/p>\n

DOCTOR. Well, it will be ten years before we can tell if the immediate benefits of the operation will be lasting or — passing or even if there’d still be — and this is what haunts me about it! — any possibility, afterwards, of reconstructing a — totally sound person, it may be that the person will always be limited afterwards, relieved of acute disturbances, but — limited<\/i>, Mrs. Venable.<\/p>\n

MRS. VENABLE. Oh, but what a blessing to them, Doctor, to be just peaceful, to be just suddenly — peaceful … (A bird sings sweetly in the garden<\/i>) After all that horror, after those nightmares: just to be able to lift up their eyes and see — (She looks up and raises a hand to indicate the sky<\/i>) — a sky not as black with savage, devouring birds as the sky that we saw in the Encantadas, Doctor.<\/p>\n

DOCTOR. — Mrs. Venable? I can’t guarantee that a lobotomy would stop her — babbling<\/i>!<\/p>\n

MRS. VENABLE. That may be, maybe not, but after the operation, who would believe<\/i> her, Doctor?<\/p>\n

(Pause. Faint jungle music<\/i>)<\/p>\n

DOCTOR. (quietly<\/i>) My God. (Pause<\/i>) — Mrs. Venable, suppose after meeting the girl and observing the girl and hearing the story she babbles — I still shouldn’t feel that her condition’s — intractable enough! to justify the risks of — suppose I shouldn’t feel that non-surgical treatment such as insulin shock and electric shock and —<\/p>\n

MRS. VENABLE. SHE’S HAD ALL THAT AT SAINT MARY’S! Nothing else is left for her.<\/p>\n

DOCTOR. But if I disagreed with you?<\/p>\n

(Pause<\/i>)<\/p>\n

MRS. VENABLE. That’s just part of a question: finish the question, Doctor.<\/p>\n

DOCTOR. Would you still be interested in my work at Lion’s View? I mean would the Sebastian Venable Memorial Foundation still be interested in it?<\/p>\n

MRS. VENABLE. Aren’t we always more interested in a thing that concerns us personally, Doctor?<\/p>\n

DOCTOR. Mrs. Venable!! (Catharine Holly appears between the lace window curtains<\/i>) You’re such an innocent person that it doesn’t occur to you, it obviously hasn’t even occurred to you that anybody less innocent than you are could possibly interpret that offer of a subsidy as — well, as sort of a bribe<\/i>?<\/p>\n

MRS. VENABLE. (laughs, throwing her head back<\/i>) Name it that — I don’t care –. There’s just two things to remember. She’s a destroyer. My son was a creator<\/i>! — Now if my honesty’s shocked you — pick up your little black bag without the subsidy in it, and run away from this garden! — Nobody’s heard our conversation but you and I, Doctor Sugar …<\/p>\n

(Miss Foxhill comes out of the house<\/i>)<\/p>\n

FOXHILL. Mrs. Venable?<\/p>\n

MRS. VENABLE. What is it, what do you want, Miss Foxhill?<\/p>\n

FOXHILL. Mrs. Venable? Miss Holly is here with —<\/p>\n

(Mrs. Venable sees Catherine at the window<\/i>)<\/p>\n

MRS. VENABLE. Oh my God. There she is, in the window! — I told you I didn’t want her to enter my house again, I told you to meet them at the door and lead them around the side of the house to the garden and you didn’t listen. I’m not ready to face her. I have to have my five o’clock cocktail first, to fortify me. Take my chair inside. Doctor? Are you still here? I thought you’d run out of the garden. I’m going back through the garden to the other entrance. Doctor? Sugar? You may stay in the garden if you wish to or run out of the garden if you wish to or go in this way if you wish to or do anything that you wish to but I’m going to have my five o’clock daiquiri, frozen!<\/i> — before I face her …<\/p>\n

(All during this she has been sailing very slowly off through the garden like a stately vessel at sea with a fair wind in her sails, a pirate’s frigate or a treasure-laden galleon. The young Doctor stares at Catherine framed by the lace window curtains. Sister Felicity appears beside her and draws her away from the window. Music: an ominous fanfare. Sister Felicity holds the door open for Catharine as the Doctor starts quickly forward. He starts to pick up his bag but doesn’t. Catharine rushes out, they almost collide with each other<\/i>)<\/p>\n

CATHARINE. Excuse me.<\/i><\/p>\n

DOCTOR. I’m sorry …<\/i><\/p>\n

(She looks after him as he goes into the house<\/i>)<\/p>\n

SISTER FELICITY. Sit down and be still till your family come outside.<\/p>\n

(DIM OUT<\/i>)<\/p>\n

\n