{"id":3852,"date":"2005-11-09T08:12:49","date_gmt":"2005-11-09T13:12:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=3852"},"modified":"2023-08-17T07:33:24","modified_gmt":"2023-08-17T11:33:24","slug":"the-books-now-the-cats-with-jewelled-claws-tennessee-williams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=3852","title":{"rendered":"The Books: \u201cNow the Cats with Jewelled Claws\u201d (Tennessee Williams)"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Williams was prolific!<\/p>\n

\"TokyoHotel.jpg\"Next Tennessee Williams play on the shelf is Now the Cats with Jewelled Claws<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, included in The Theatre of Tennessee Williams, Vol. 7: In the Bar of a Tokyo Hotel, and Other Plays<\/a>\"\"<\/i>. Another one-act. Probably from the late 70s, although my copy doesn’t have a date on it. I’m gonna be honest: NO IDEA what is going on with this play. NONE. My guess is: Tennessee wrote this while he was wasted. He wrote this in a time in his life when he was mainly drinking and drugging. It has a hallucinatory quality (but that’s not unusual – most of his plays have a hallucinatory quality) – but along with the hallucinatory quality there is an UNCLEAR quality. It’s the kind of thing a person writes when he is stoned and he thinks it is BRILLIANT and PROFOUND … and when he reads it back when he is sober he can’t believe how self-indulgent or bad it is.<\/p>\n

It takes place at a lunch counter in New York. Outside the window of the lunch counter is a street. The street is deserted. Across the street is a movie theatre showing a porno movie (that’s why I think this play is from the late 70s) called “Defiance of Decency”. Occasionally, during the action of the play, a man will walk down the street – carrying various signs. These signs are omens, or they are comments on what is going on … You are supposed to feel that something is coming down, something is approaching … a huge event. Along the lines of the Second Coming. Jesus Christ hovers over this play. People seem to be waiting for Him. His name is never said – he is referred to as “the Mystic Rose”. And while people wait for the Mystic Rose – they re-enact the torture he went through – only through rough sex in public bathrooms. Or something like that. Honestly, I have no idea. It’s very unclear to me.<\/p>\n

Madge and Bea are two bickering friends having lunch at the counter. Bea just returned from a department store where people were literally fighting over certain toys. She arrives disheveled from the ordeal.<\/p>\n

The waitress is pregnant with a black eye. She rarely speaks.<\/p>\n

The manager is an old lascivious queen – with dentures. He wants to fire his female waitress and hire hot young boys. Give the place a different feel. He has hostility for women. He hates that Madge and Bea are sitting there. He despises women, and keeps going over and reprimanding them for stupid things. Mainly because he wants to live in a male-only universe. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that one of the characters has a line in the play about how the word for “hysteria” is, in Greek origin, the word for female sexual organs – hence: “hysterectomy”. This fact (along with the whole “pudendum” factoid – Greek root meaning “shame”) is one of those things that if I think about it too long I become a man-hating rageful feminazi. The hatred of women built into the language. I try not to dwell on it. So I think Tennessee was making a point there.<\/p>\n

Eventually, two young gay hustlers walk in. They are in love – but they make money hustling guys to have sex for money. They wear pink leather jackets that say “Mystic Rose” on the back.<\/p>\n

I don’t know what ANY of this means.<\/p>\n

I do love the title of the play, though. Especially the “Now” part of it. A nice touch. “The Cats with Jewelled Claws” is a way more obvious title – but putting the “Now” in there adds an immediacy, and a mystery. I like it.<\/p>\n

Oh, and to add to all of this: occasionally these characters stand up and do a musical number. They dance. They sing. They speak in rhyme. Then they see the guy go by outside with a placard, and they freak out at what it means. Only … I have no idea what it means.<\/p>\n

Tennessee, does any of this add up or were you just high? Please advise.<\/p>\n

One of my other thoughts is that – even though the Manager of the luncheon has very few lines – he is really Tennessee’s alter ego on stage. The plight of the old gay man. The manager is the one who ends the play … A tragedy occurs outside. One of the hustlers (called “first young man”) – who earlier expressed disgust at “the old fruit” (meaning: the manager) – and says something like: “I would die before going with a guy like that” – anyway, the play ends with him succumbing, and going into the men’s restroom with the manager. Right before they leave the stage, the first young man says to the manager: “Who in hell are you?” The manager replies, chillingly, “Your future. I’ll introduce you to it.”<\/p>\n

The gay fetish of YOUTH. The manager (old, decrepit, dentures) is everything that gay men never want to be. The young hustler doesn’t even want to LOOK at the manager, because it is like looking into a dark mirror. In the end, though, the first young man stops fighting. He goes to meet his future.<\/p>\n

Which is very depressing, if you think about it. Why is the ONLY option for a gay man to become an old decrepit toothless queeny-queen? Well, that’s how Tennessee saw it. That was the world he grew up in. And that is also why I say he has to have written this play as an old man. Because he was already THERE. His youth was gone. He IS the manager.<\/p>\n

Just a thought.<\/p>\n

I’ll excerpt from a scene between the two young men in the pink leather jackets.<\/p>\n


\nFrom Now the Cats with Jewelled Claws<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, by Tennessee Williams<\/strong><\/p>\n

FIRST YOUNG MAN. The old fruit is giving us the eye.<\/p>\n

SECOND YOUNG MAN. Don’t speak contemptuously of our admirers, Babe.<\/p>\n

FIRST YOUNG MAN. I never go with that type.<\/p>\n

SECOND YOUNG MAN. You will. You will.<\/p>\n

FIRST YOUNG MAN. I’d die first. No shit.<\/p>\n

SECOND YOUNG MAN. Sure, but eventually — death becomes a habit.<\/p>\n

FIRST YOUNG MAN. Not for me. There’s a limit.<\/p>\n

SECOND YOUNG MAN. Constantly — ex — tending.<\/p>\n

[Their lines here are a capella<\/i>]<\/p>\n

FIRST YOUNG MAN. Christ, you’re bringing me down.<\/p>\n

SECOND YOUNG MAN. From what glorious height? Top floor of the old Ansonia?<\/p>\n

FIRST YOUNG MAN. It’s this solitary hustling of yours, the types you go with. You adopt their attitudes and their talk; there’s even a slightly different expression in your eyes.<\/p>\n

SECOND YOUNG MAN. And so?<\/p>\n

FIRST YOUNG MAN. Let’s quit it.<\/p>\n

SECOND YOUNG MAN. The hustling?<\/p>\n

FIRST YOUNG MAN. The solitary hustling. Look. I’m going to say it.<\/p>\n

SECOND YOUNG MAN. Don’t.<\/p>\n

FIRST YOUNG MAN. It’s degrading to our love.<\/p>\n

SECOND YOUNG MAN. The alternative?<\/p>\n

FIRST YOUNG MAN. If we’ve got to hustle, we could do it together.<\/p>\n

SECOND YOUNG MAN. They’re scared of pairs.<\/p>\n

FIRST YOUNG MAN. Don’t they like to be scared? Isn’t that part of the mystique of the leather and the bikes? I’m getting sick of it. I’m getting scared of it. You know what they say.<\/p>\n

SECOND YOUNG MAN. Yeah. They say, “How much?” and if it’s less than fifty, I laugh, “Ha ha!”<\/p>\n

FIRST YOUNG MAN. Then I guess you must be gratifying them.<\/p>\n

SECOND YOUNG MAN. Meaning?<\/p>\n

FIRST YOUNG MAN. You know what I mean. Doing what they request.<\/p>\n

SECOND YOUNG MAN. Oh, I do kinky things, like pissing in their faces and calling them dirty names, and if they want chains and ropes and a bit of correction, yeah, I gratify them.<\/p>\n

FIRST YOUNG MAN. They don’t get into you, do they?<\/p>\n

SECOND YOUNG MAN. You know fucking well they don’t and never will.<\/p>\n

FIRST YOUNG MAN. They say.<\/p>\n

SECOND YOUNG MAN. What?<\/p>\n

FIRST YOUNG MAN. You know. Today’s trade is tomorrow’s joke. I’m scared. I love you and I’m scared. You’re my life. I’m — scared …<\/p>\n

SECOND YOUNG MAN. Of what?<\/p>\n

FIRST YOUNG MAN. Tomorrow and — Look! Look out the window!<\/p>\n

[The hunched man passes the window with another placard on which is printed, “Mr. Black”.<\/i>]<\/p>\n

SECOND YOUNG MAN. What about it? He’s paging Mr. Black?<\/p>\n

FIRST YOUNG MAN. [rising<\/i>] See him go, black as a crow? A placard bearing along the street? The name of the rap that we can’t beat? [He faces in turn, Bea and Madge, the waitress, the manager<\/i>] Do you<\/i> see him? Do you<\/i> see him? Do you<\/i> see him? [They all shake their heads in denial<\/i>] There, now, you see, he’s visible only to you and me!<\/p>\n

SECOND YOUNG MAN. Sit down, Babe. Hysteria’s for girls with beauty parlor curls. Mr. Black could be anyone under — [He rises, too, then staggers back from the apparition passing along the walk<\/i>] — the fading of the — sun … [He falls back into his chair<\/i>] Hysteria, ha ha! The word is derived from the Greek word for female organs. Hysterectomy, when they’re removed, partial or total. Okay, now?<\/p>\n

FIRST YOUNG MAN. Don’t give me Greek, you poor man’s shiek. You saw him, too, and your face turned pale as if you’d lived your life in jail.<\/p>\n

SECOND YOUNG MAN. Roses are red, violets are blue, I have a late, late date with you.<\/p>\n

FIRST YOUNG MAN. Your place or mine?<\/p>\n

SECOND YOUNG MAN. If we’re going to argue about it, forget it. Old joke … He’s past, at last.<\/p>\n

FIRST YOUNG MAN. But not burned in your brain?<\/p>\n

SECOND YOUNG MAN. I forget what I can’t explain, drop a white cross that lifts me high.<\/p>\n

FIRST YOUNG MAN. Height of a hill, where He died, the first Mystic Rose was crucified.<\/p>\n

[The duet ends<\/i>]<\/p>\n

SECOND YOUNG MAN.<\/p>\n

\n