PLAYS FOR THE THEATRE A DRAMA ANTHOLOGY Sixth Edition Edited by Oscar G

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PLAYS FOR THE THEATRE A DRAMA ANTHOLOGY Sixth Edition Edited by Oscar G. Brockett KEMP LIBRARY East Stroudsburg University East Stroudsburg. Pennsylvania 18301 HARCOURT BRACE COLLEGE PUBLISHERS FoRT W oRTH PHILADELP H IA SAN DI EGO NEw YoRK ORLANDO AusTIN SAN ANTONIO T oRONTO 110NTREAL LoNDON SYDNEY ToKYO Publisher Editor in Chief Acquisitions Editor Developmental Editor Project Editor Production Manager Art Director Ted Buchholz Christopher P. Klein Barbara ]. C. Rosenberg Cathlynn Richard Laura ). Hanna Jane Tyndall Ponceti Vicki Whistler Cover artwork by David Hockney Detail, Parade Curtain after Picasso, 1980 Oil on canvas, 48 x 60 inches © David H ockncy Copyright© 1996 by Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc. All rights resewed. No part of this pubEcation may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Requests for permission to make copies of any part of the work should be mailed to: Permissions Department Harcourt Brace & Company 6277 Sea H arbor Drive Orlando, F lorida 32887-6777 Some material in this work previously appeared in PLAYS FOR THE THEATRE, F ifth Edition, copyright © 1988, 1984, 1979, 1974, 1967 by Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc. All rights reserved. Address for Editorial Correspondence: Harcourt Brace College Publishers 301 Commerce Street Suite 3700 Fort Worth, Texas 76102 R 7 Address for Orders: Harcourt Brace & Company 6277 Sea H arbor D rive Orlando, Florida 32887 Printed in the United States of America Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 95-79645 ISBN: 0-15-501581-8 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 090 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Contents Preface v Oedipus Rex by Sophocles 1 English Version by Dudley Fitts and Robert Fitzgerald Noah and His Sons (Anonymous) Edited by Oscar G. Brockett 40 Hamlet, Prince ofDenmark by William Shakespeare The Dentist, A Commedia dell'Arte Scenario Recorded by Flaminio Scala, English Version by Oscar G. Brockett 55 156 Tartu.lfe by Moliere 162 Translated into E nglish Verse by Richard Wilbur A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen 212 Translated by William Archer with emendations by Oscar G. Brockett "The Hairy Ape" by Eugene O'Neill 265 The Good Woman of Setzuan by Bertolt Brecht 296 Revised English Version by Eric Bentley Caton a Hot Tin Roof by Tennessee Williams Happy Days by Samuel Beckett 413 The Colored Museum by George C. Wolfe Roosters by Milcha Sanchez-Scott 463 M. Butteifly by David Henry Hwang The Baltimore Waltz by Paula Vogel Credits 567 351 492 537 433 I Tennessee Williams (1911-1983) Cat on a Hot Tin Roof ( 1955) For several years following W orld War II, the most successful American plays were written in a style that can be called modified realism. Tennessee Williams helped to popularize this style with The Glass M enagerie (1944) in which scenes and characters are called up out of the narrator-character's memory. T he emphasis in this play, as in Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire (1949) and Arthur Miller's Death ofa Salesman (1949), is on the psychological truth of character and situation played out in minimal and symbolic settings. Cat on a Hot Tin Roofis in this tradition. The action, which is continuous, takes place in a bed-sitting room in a large plantation house in Mississippi. Within this restricted time and space, the characters are engulfed in mendacitydeception both of themselves and others. Two of the characters, Big Daddy and Brick, are forced to face truths that threaten the very core of their being: that Big Daddy is actually dying of cancer though he has been told he is free of it; and that Brick's friend Skipper loved him and died when Brick rejected him. Brick's wife Maggie and his brother Gooper (along with Gooper's wife Mae) are primarily concerned with gaining control over Big D addy's estate. Maggie, whose description of her position gives the play its title, seeks desperately to convince Brick to impregnate her because she believes a child will help overcome the doubts about Brick's reliability raised by his alcoholism. Ironically, it is a new deception, Maggie's false announcement that she is pregnant, that forces her to find the means to make Brick sleep with her (taking away his alcohol until he does so). D espite the play's denunciation of deception, the ending seems to condone Maggie's mendacity. With its powerful psychological portraits, compelling conflicts, and its insights into a world dominated by self-interest, Cat on a H ot1 Tin Roofis an excellent example of postwar realism. I 351 Tennessee Williams Cat on a Hot Tin Roof CHARACTERS MARGARET BRICK MAE, sometimes callep Sister Woman BIG MAMA DIXIE, a little girft BIG DADDY REVERE ND TOOKER GOO PER, sometimes called Brother Man DOCTOR BAUGH, pronounced "Baw" a Negro servant another Another little girl and two small boys LACEY, SOOKEY, The set is the bed-sitting room ofa plantation house in the Mississippi D elta. It is along an upstairs gallery that probably runs around the entire house; it has two pairs ofve1y wide doors opening onto the galle1y, showing white balustrades against a fair summer slry thatfades into dusk and night during the coune of the play. . .. The bathroom door, showing only pale-blue tile and silver towel racks, is in one side wall; the hall door in the opposite wall. Two articles offurniture need mention: a big double bed . . . ; and against the wall space between the two huge double doon upstage . .. a huge console combination ofradio-phonograph (hi-ji with three speakers), TV set, and liquor cabinet, bearing and containing many glasses and bottles .. .. the walls below the ceiling should dissolve mysteriously into air; the set should be roofed by the sky. . . . An evening in summe1~ The action is continuous, with two intermissions. ACT ONE At the r·ise ofthe curtain someone is taking a showa in the bathroom, the door ofwhich is halfopen. A pretty young woman, with anxious lines in her face, enters the bedroom and crosses to the bathroom door. MARGARET: [shouting above roar of water] One of th ose no-neck monsters hit me with a hot buttered biscuit so I have t' change! [MARGARETs voice is both rapid and drawling. In her long speeches she has the vocal tricks of a priest delive1·ing a litu1gical chant, the lines are almost sung, always continuing a little beyond her breath so she has to gasp for anotho: Sometimes she intersperses the fines with a little wordless singing, such as "DA-DA-DAAAA!" [Water turns cif.f and BRICK calls out to her; but is stiff unseen. A tone of politely feigned interest, masking indifference, or worse, is characteristic of his speech with MARGARET.] 352 353 Cat on a Hot Tin R oif Wha'd you say, Maggie? Water was on s' loud I couldn't hearya.... Well, !!-just remarked that!-one of th' no-neck monsters messed up m' lovely lace dress so I got t'-cha- a-ange .... BRICK: MARGAR ET: [She opens and kicks shut drawers ifthe dmser.] Why d'ya call Gooper's kiddies "no-neck monsters"? MA RGAR ET: Because they've got no necks! Isn't that a good enough reason? BRICK: D on't they have any necks? MARGARET: None visible. Their fat little heads are set on their fat little bodies without a bit of connection. BRICK: That's too bad. MA RGARET: Yes, it's too bad because you can't wring their necks if they've got no necks to wring! Isn't that right, honey? BRICK: [She steps out ifher dress, stands in a slip if ivory satin and face.] Yep, they're no-neck monsters, all no-neck people arc monsters .. . [Children shriek dowmtairs.] H ear them? H ear them screaming? I don't know where their voice boxes are located since they don't have necks. I tell you I got so nervous at that table tonight I thought I would throw back my head and utter a scream you could hear across the Arkansas border an' parts of Louisiana an' Tennessee. I said to your charming sister-in-law, Mae, honey, couldn't you feed those precious little things at a separate table with an oilcloth cover? They make such a mess an' the lace cloth looks pretty! She made enormous eyes at me and said, "Ohhh, noooooo! On Big Daddy's birthday? Why, he would never forgive me!" Well, I want you to know, Big D addy hadn't been at the table two minutes with those five no-neck monsters slobbering and drooling over their food before he threw down his fork an' shouted, "Fo' God's sake, Gooper, why don't you put them pigs at a trough in th' kitchen?"-Well, I swear, I simply could have di-iced! Think of it, Brick, they've got five of them and number six is com ing. They've brought the whole bunch down here like animals to display at a county fair. Why they have those children doin' tricks all the time! "Junior, show Big Daddy how you do this, show Big Daddy how you do that, say you r little piece fo' Big Daddy, Sister. Show your dimples, Sugar. Brother, show Big Daddy how you stand on your head!"- It goes on all the time along, with constant little remarks and innuendos about the fact that you and I have not produced any children, are totally childless, and therefore totally useless!-Of course it's comical but it's also disgusting since it's so obvious what they're up to! BRICK: [without interest] What are they up to, Maggie? MA RGARET: Why, you know what they're up to! BRICK: [appearing] No, I don't know what they're up to. so [He stands there in the bathroom doorway drying his hair with a towel and hanging onto the towel rack because one ankle is broken, plastered and bound. H e is still slim and firm as a boy. His liquor hasn't started tearing him down outside. H e has the additional charm if that cool air if detachment that people have who have given up the struggle. But now and then, when disturbed, something flashes behind it, like lightning in a fair sky, which shows that at some deeper level he is forjl·om peacefit!. Perhaps in a Tennessee Williams 354 stronger light he would show some signs ofdeliquescence, but the jading, st ill warm, light from the gallery treats him gently.] I'll tell you what they're up to, boy of mine!-They're up to cutting you out of your father's estate, and- MARGA RET: [ She freezes momentarily before her next remark. H er voice drops as if it were somehow a personally embarassing admission.] - Now we know that Big Daddy's dyin' of-cancer. ... [There are voices on the fawn below: long-drawn calls across distance. MARGARET raises her lovely bare arms and powders her armpits with a light sigh. [She adjusts ,the angle ofa magnifYing mirror to straighten an eyelash, then rises fretfully saying:] There's so mtich light in the room it [softly but sharply] Do we? MARGARET: Do we what? BRICK: Know Big Daddy's dyin' of cancer? MARGARET: Got the report today. BRICK: Oh ... BRI CK: [letting down bamboo blinds which cast long, gold-fretted shadows over the room] MARGARET : Yep, got th' report just now ... it didn't surprise me, Baby.... [Her voice has range and music; sometimes it drops low as a boy's and you have a sudden image ofher playing boy's games as a child.] I recognized the symptoms soon's we got here last spring and I'm willin' to bet you that Brother Man and his wife were pretty sure of it, too. That more than likely explains why their usual summer migration to the coolness of the Great Smokies was passed up this summer in favor of-hustlin' down here ev'ry whipstitch with their whole screamin' tribe! And why so many allusions have been made to Rainbow Hill lately. You know what Rainbow Hill is? Place that's famous for treatin' alcoholics an' dope fiends in the movies! BRICK: I'm not in the movies. MARGARET : No, and you don't take dope. Otherwise you're a perfect candidate fo r Rainbow Hill, Baby, and that's where they aim to ship you-over my dead body! Yep, over my dead body they'll ship you there, but nothing would please them better. Then Brother Man could get a-hold of the purse strings and dole out remittances to us, maybe get power of attorney and sign checks for us and cut off our credit wherever, whenever he wanted! Son-of-a-bitch!-How'd you like that, Baby?-Well, you've been doin' just about ev'rything in your power to bring it about, you've just been doin' ev'erything you can think of to aid and abet them in this scheme of theirs! Qyittin' work, devoting yourself to the occupation of drinkin'!-Breakin' your ankle last night on the high school athletic field: doin' what? Jumpin' hurdles? At two or three in the morning? Just fantastic! Got in the paper. Clarksdale Register carried a nice little item about it, human interest story about a well-known former athlete stagin' a one-man track meet on the Glorious Hill High School athletic field last night, but was slightly out of condition and didn't clear the first hurdle! Brother Man Cooper claims he Cat on a Hot Tin Roof 355 exercised his influence t' keep it from goin' out over AP or UP or every goddam"P" But, Brick? You still have one big advantage! BRICK: [During the above swiftflood ifwords, BRICK hm reclined with contrapuntal leisure on the snowy smface if the bed and has rolled over carefully on his side or belly.] [wryly] Did you say something, Maggie? Big Daddy dotes on you, honey. And he can't stand Brother Man and Brother Man's wife, that monster of fertility, Mac; she's downright odious to him! Know how I know? By little expressions that flicker over his face when that woman is holding fo'th on one of her choice topics such as- how she refused twilight sleep!-when the twins were delivered! Because she feels motherhood's an experience that a woman ought to experience fully!-in order to fully appreciate the wonder and beauty of it! HAH ! [This loud "BAH!'' is accompanied by a violent action such as slamming a MARGARET: drawer shut.] -and how she made Brother Man come in an' stand beside her in the delivery room so he would not miss out on the "wonder and beauty" of it, either!-producin' those no-neck monsters.... [A speech if this kind would be antipathetic ji-om almost anybody but MARGARET; she makes it oddly funny, because he1· eyes constantly twinkle and her voice shakes with laughter which is basically indulgent.] - Big Daddy shares my attitude toward those two! As for me, well- I give him a laugh now and then and he tolerates me. In fact! -I sometimes suspect that Big D addy harbors a little unconscious "lech" fo' me .... BRICK: What makes you think that Big D addy has a lech fo r you, Maggie? MARGARET: Way he always drops his eyes down my body when I'm talkin' to him, drops his eyes to my boobs an' licks his old chops! H a ha! BRICK: That kind of talk is disgusting. MARGARET: D id anyone ever tell you that you're an ass-aching Puritan, Brick? I think it's mighty fine that that ole fellow, on the doorstep of death, still takes in my shape with what I think is deserved appreciation! And you wanta know something else? Big Daddy didn't know how many little Maes and Goopers had been produced! "How many kids have you got?" he asked at the table, just like Brother Man and his wife were new acquaintances to him! Big Mama said he was jokin', but that old boy wasn't joki n', Lord, no! And w hen they infawmed him that they had five already and were turning out number six!-the news seemed to come as a sort of unpleasant surpnse ... [Children yell below.] Scream, monsters.' [Turns to BRICK with a sudden, gay, charming smile which fades as she notices that he is not looking at her but into fading gold space with a troubled exp1·ession. [It is constant 1·ejection that makes her humor "bitchy. "] Yes, you should of been at that supper table, Baby. [Whenever she calls him "Baby" the word is a soft cams.] Tennessee Williams 356 Y'know, Big Daddy, bless his ole sweet soul, he's the dearest ole thing in the world, but he does hunch over his food as if he preferred not to notice anything else. Well, Mae an' Cooper were side by side at the table, direckly across fro m Big Daddy, watchin' his face like hawks while they jawed an' jabbered about the cuteness an' brilliance of th' no-neck monsters! [She giggles with a handfluttering at her throat and her breast and her long throat arched [She comes downstage and re-creates the scene with voice and gesture.] And the no-neck monsters were ranged around the table, some in high chairs and some on th' Books of Knowledge, all in fancy little paper caps in honor of Big Daddy's birthday, and all through dinner, well, I want you to know that Brcfther Man an' his partner never once, for one moment, stopped exclpnging pokes an' pinches an' kicks an' signs an' signals!-Why, they were like a couple of cardsharps fleecing a sucker.-Even Big M ama, bless her ole sweet soul, she isn't th' quickest an' brightest thing in the world, she finally noticed, at last, an' said to Cooper, "Cooper, what are you an' Mae makin' all these signs at each other about?"- I swear t' goodness, I nearly choked on my chicken! back at the dressing table, still doesn't see BRICK. He is watching her with a look that is not quite definable-Amused? shocked? contemptuous?-part ofthose and part ofsomething else. ] [MARGARET, Y'know-your brother Cooper still cherishes the illusion he took a giant step up on the social ladder when he married Miss Mae Flynn of the Memphis Flynns. [ MARGARET moves about the room as she talks, stops before the mirro1; moves on.] But I have a piece of Spanish news for Cooper. The Flynns never had a thing in this world but money and they lost that, they were nothing at all but fairly successful climbers. Of course, Mae F lynn came out i n Memphis eight years before I made my debut in Nashville, but I had friends at WardBelmont who came from Memphis and they used to come to see me and I used to go to see them for Christmas and spring vacations, and so I know who rates an' who doesn't rate in Memphis society. Why, y'know ole Papa Flynn, he barely escaped doing time in the federal pen for shady manipulations on th' stock market when his chain stores crashed, and as for Mae having been a cotton carnival queen, as they remind us so often, lest we forget, well, that's one honor that I don't envy her for!-Sit on a brass throne on a tacky Boat an' ride down Main Street, smilin', bowin', and blowin' kisses to all the trash on the street[She picks out a pair ofjeweled sandals and rushes to the dressing table.] Why, year before last, when Susan McPheeters was singled out fo' that honor, y' know what happened to her? Y'know what happened to poor little Susie McPheeters? BRICK: [absentry] No. What happened to little Susie McPheeters? MARGARET: Somebody spit tobacco juice in her face. BRICK: [dreamiry] Somebody spit tobacco juice in her face? MARGARET: That's right, some old drunk leaned out of a window in the Hotel Cayoso and yelled, "Hey, Qyeen, hey, hey, there, Qyeenie!" Poor Susie 357 Cat on a Hot Tin Roof looked up and flashed him a radiant smile and he shot out a squirt of tobacco juice right in poor Susie's face. BRICK: Well, what d'you know about that. MARGARET: [gairy] What do I know about it? I was there, I saw it! BRICK: [absentry] Must have been kind of funny. MARGARET: Susie didn't think so. Had hysterics. Screamed like a banshee. They had to stop th' parade an' remove her from her throne an' go on with[ She catches sight of him in the mirr01; gasps slightry, wheels about to face him. Count ten.] -Why are you looking at me like that? [whistling softly, now] Like what, Maggie? MARGARET: [intensery,fearfolry] The way y' were looking at me just now, befo' I caught your eye in the mirror and you started t' whistle! I don't know how t' describe it but it froze my blood!- I've caught you lookin' at me like that so often lately. What are you thin kin' of when you look at me like that? BRICK: I wasn't conscious of lookin' at you, Maggie. MARGARET: Well, I was conscious of it! What were you thinkin'? BRICK: I don't remember thinking of anything...