Read The Magic Tower and Other One-Act Plays Online
Authors: Tennessee Williams
DOROTHY
[
nervously
]: Well, you see it’s like
this—I
do all my buying in Boston
and—
YOUNG MAN
: What do you buy in Boston?
DOROTHY
: You can see for yourself. Look over the stock.
YOUNG MAN
[
examining the shelves
]:
Thimbles—threads—ladies’
needlework—white
gloves—
DOROTHY
: Notions. Odds and ends.
YOUNG MAN
: Odds and
ends—of
existence?
DOROTHY
: Yes, that’s it exactly.
YOUNG MAN
: What do you do after hours?
DOROTHY
: I carry on a lot of correspondence.
YOUNG MAN
: Who with?
DOROTHY
: With wholesale firms in Boston.
YOUNG MAN
: How do you sign your letters?
DOROTHY
: “Sincerely.” “As ever.” “Very truly yours.”
YOUNG MAN
: But never with love?
DOROTHY
: Love? To firms in Boston?
YOUNG MAN
: I guess not. I think you ought to enlarge your correspondence. I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll meet you tonight on Highway No. 77!
DOROTHY
: Oh, no! I have my correspondence!
YOUNG MAN
: Delay your correspondence. Meet me there. We’ll have a couple of beers at the Starlight Casino.
DOROTHY
[
with frantic evasion
]: But I don’t drink!
YOUNG MAN
: Then
eat
. Swiss cheese on rye. It doesn’t matter. Afterwards I’ll take you for a ride in an open car.
DOROTHY
: Where to?
YOUNG MAN
: To Cypress Hill.
DOROTHY
: Why, that’s the cemetery.
YOUNG MAN
: Yes, I know.
DOROTHY
: Why there?
YOUNG MAN
: Because dead people give the best advice.
DOROTHY
: Advice on what?
YOUNG MAN
: The problems of the living.
DOROTHY
: What advice do they give?
YOUNG MAN
: Just one word:
Live!
DOROTHY
: Live?
YOUNG MAN
: Yes, live, live, live! It’s all they know, it’s the only word left in their vocabulary!
DOROTHY
: I don’t see
how—
?
YOUNG MAN
: I’ll tell you how. There’s one thing in Death’s favor. It’s a wonderful process of simplification. It rids the heart of all inconsequentials. For instance, it goes through the dictionary with an absolutely merciless blue pencil. Finally all that you’ve got left’s one
page—and
on that page one word!
DOROTHY
: The word you hear at night on Cypress Hill?
YOUNG MAN
: The word you hear at night on Cypress Hill!
DOROTHY
: Ohhh. Oh, oh!
YOUNG MAN
: But no one hears it till they deal with
me
. I have a secret patented device that makes it audible to them. Something never processed by Du Pont. But nonetheless a marvelous invention. It’s absolutely weightless and transparent. It fits inside the ear. Your friends won’t even know you have it on. But this I guarantee: you’ll hear that word, that sound much like the long, sweet sound of leaves in motion!
DOROTHY
: Leaves?
YOUNG MAN
: Yes, willow leaves or leaves of cypresses or leaves of wind-blown grass! And afterwards you’ll never be the same. No, you’ll be changed forever!
DOROTHY
: In what way?
YOUNG MAN
: You’ll live, live,
live!
—And
not behind petunias. How about it, Miss Simple? Dorothy? Is it a date? Tonight at half-past eight on No. 77?
DOROTHY
: Whereabouts on Highway No. 77?
YOUNG MAN
: By the wild plum
tree—at
the broken place in the long stone
wall—where
roots have cleft the rocks and made them crumble.
DOROTHY
: It sounds so far. It
sounds—uncivilized.
YOUNG MAN
: It is uncivilized, but it isn’t far.
DOROTHY
: How would I get out there? What means of transportation?
YOUNG MAN
: Borrow your kid brother’s bike.
DOROTHY
: Tonight’s Scout meeting night; he wouldn’t let me.
YOUNG MAN
: Then walk, it wouldn’t kill you!
DOROTHY
: How do you know? It might. I come from Boston.
YOUNG MAN
: Listen, lady. Boston’s a state of mind that you’ll grow out of.
DOROTHY
: Not without some insulin shock treatments.
YOUNG MAN
: Stop evading! Will you or will you not?
DOROTHY
: I’ve got so much to do. I have to return some books to the public library.
YOUNG MAN
: Just one more
time—will
you or will you not?
DOROTHY
: I can’t give definite
answers—I’m
from Boston!
YOUNG MAN
: Just one more mention of Boston’s apt to be fatal! Well, Miss Simple? I can’t wait forever!
DOROTHY
: I guess
I—might
.
YOUNG MAN
: You guess you
might?
DOROTHY
: I mean I guess I will.
YOUNG MAN
: You
guess
you will?
DOROTHY
: I mean I
will—I
will!
YOUNG MAN
: That’s better.
—So
long, Dorothy. [
He grins and goes out, slamming door
.]
DOROTHY
: Goodbye. [
She stares dreamily into space for a moment. Mrs. Dull comes in
.]
MRS. DULL
[
sharply
]: Miss Simple!
DOROTHY
: Oh! Excuse me. What do you want?
MRS. DULL
: I want a pair of wine-colored socks for my husband.
DOROTHY
: I’m terribly sorry but the only pair in stock has been reserved.
MRS. DULL
: Reserved for whom, Miss Simple?
DOROTHY
: A gentleman who represents this line. [
Showing the card
.]
MRS. DULL
: Life, Incorporated? Huh, I never heard of it.
DOROTHY
: Neither had I before. But now I have. And tomorrow the store will be closed for extensive alterations.
MRS. DULL
: Alterations of what kind, Miss Simple?
DOROTHY
: I’m going to knock out all four walls.
MRS. DULL
: Knock
out—what—
? Incredible!
DOROTHY
: Yes, to accommodate some brand-new merchandise. Things I never kept in stock before.
MRS. DULL
: What kind of things? Things in bottles, Miss Simple, or things in boxes?
DOROTHY
: Neither one nor the other, Mrs. Dull.
MRS. DULL
: But everything comes in bottles or in boxes.
DOROTHY
: Everything but Life, Incorporated.
MRS. DULL
: What does it come in, then?
DOROTHY
: I’m not sure yet. But I suspect it’s something unconfined, something wild and open as the sky is!
—Also
I’m going to change the name of the store. It isn’t going to be SIMPLE NOTIONS any more, it’s going to be TREMENDOUS INSPIRATIONS!
MRS. DULL
: Gracious! In that case you’ll certainly lose my custom.
DOROTHY
: I rather expected to.
MRS. DULL
: And you’re not sorry?
DOROTHY
: Not the least bit sorry. I think I caught a slight skin rash from dealing with your silver. Also you sniff too much. You ought to blow your nose. Or better still, you ought to trim it down. I’ve often wondered how you get your nose through traffic. [
Mrs. Dull gasps, looks desperately about her, rushes out
.] You forgot your groceries, Mrs. Dull! [
Heaves them out the door. There is a loud impact and a sharp outcry. Music up
.]
Officer?—Officer
!
OFFICER
: Did you say size eleven D, Miss Simple?
DOROTHY
: Never mind that now, that’s all been settled.
OFFICER
: Amicably? Out of court, you mean?
DOROTHY
: Amicably and out of court. The saboteur has made full restitution and the case is dropped. Now what I want to ask of you is this: how do I get out to No. 77?
OFFICER
: Highway No. 77? That road’s abandoned.
DOROTHY
: Not by me. Where is it?
OFFICER
: It’s in an awful condition, it’s overgrown by brambles!
DOROTHY
: I don’t care! Where is it?
OFFICER
: They say the rain has loosened half the stones. Also the wind has taken liberties with it. The moon at night makes such confusing
shadows people lose their way, go dangerous places, do outrageous things!
DOROTHY
: Things such as what?
OFFICER
:
Oh—senseless
acrobatics, cartwheels in mid-air, unheard of songs they sing, distil the midnight vapors into
wine—do
pagan dances!
DOROTHY
: Marvelous! How do I get there?
OFFICER
: I warn you, Miss Simple, once you go that way you can’t come back to Primanproper, Massachusetts!
DOROTHY
: Who wants to come back here? Not I! Never was anyone a more willing candidate for expatriation than I am tonight! All I want to know is where it
is—
Is it north, south, or east or west of town?
OFFICER
: That’s just it, ma’am. It’s in all four directions.
DOROTHY
: Then I don’t suppose that I could possibly miss it.
OFFICER
: Hardly possible, if you want to find it. Is that all?
DOROTHY
: Yes, sir, that’s all.
—Thanks
very much.
—Good-bye
! [
Music up. Dorothy softly
.] Good-bye forever!
Moony’s Kid Don’t Cry
was performed at Straight Wharf Theatre, Nantucket, Massachusetts, opening on September 3, 1946. It was directed and designed by Albert Penalosa. The cast was as follows:
| MOONY , a workingman | Albert Penalosa |
| JANE , his wife | Rita Gam |
| MOONY’s KID , a non-speaking part | |
Scene
:
Kitchen of a cheap three-room flat in the industrial section of a large American city
.
Stove and sink are eloquent of slovenly housekeeping. A wash-line, stretched across one corner of the room, is hung with diapers and blue work-shirts. Above the stove is nailed a placard, KEEP SMILING. The kitchen table supports a small artificial Christmas tree. By far the most striking and attractive article in the room is a brand-new hobby-horse that stands stage center. There is something very gallant, almost exciting, about this new toy. It is chestnut brown, with a long flowing mane, fine golden nostrils and scarlet upcurled lips. It looks like the very spirit of unlimited freedom and fearless assault
.
As the curtain opens, the stage is dark except for a faint bluish light through the window- and door-panes. Offstage in the next room are heard smothered groans and creaking bedsprings
.
JANE
[
offstage
]: Quit that floppin’ around. It keeps me awake.
MOONY
: Think I’m gettin’ any sleep, do you?!
[
Sound of more rattling
.]
JANE
: Quiet! You’ll wake the kid up.
MOONY
: The kid, the kid! What’s more important, him sleeping or me? Who brings home the paycheck, me or the kid? [
Pause
.]
JANE
: I’ll get up an’ fix you a cup of hot milk. That’ll quiet you down maybe.
[
Moony grumbles incoherently. Jane pads softly onstage, into the kitchen. She is amazingly slight, like a tiny mandarin, enveloped in the ruins of a once gorgeously-flowered Japanese silk kimono. As she prepares the hot milk for Moony, she pads about the kitchen in a pair of men’s felt bedroom slippers, which she has a hard time keeping on her small feet. She squeezes the kimono tight about her chest, and shivers. Coughs once or twice, glances irritably at the alarm clock on window-sill, which says nearly four o’clock in the morning. Jane is still young, but her pretty, small-featured face has a yellowish, unhealthy look. Her temples and nostrils are greased with Vick’s Vap-o-Rub and her dark hair is tousled
.]
JANE
[
strident whisper
]: What for? I’ll bring yer milk in. [
Sound: scraping of furniture and heavy footsteps
.] That’s it, be sure you wake the kid
up—clumsy
ox!
[
Moony appears in the doorway, a strongly-built young workingman about twenty-five years old. He blinks his eyes and scowls irritably as he draws on his flannel shirt and stuffs it under the belt of his corduroy pants
.]
It’s that beer-drinkin’. Makes gas on yer stomach an’ keeps yuh from sleepin’.
MOONY
: Aw, I had two glasses right after dinner.
JANE
: Two a them twenty-six ounces!
—Quit
that trampin’ around, for Christ’s sake! Can’t you set still a minute?
MOONY
: Naw, I feel like I got to be moving.
JANE
: Maybe you got high blood pressure.
MOONY
: Naw, I got a wild hair. This place’s give me the jitters. You know it’s too damn close in here. Can’t take more’n six steps in any direction without coming smack up against another wall. [
Half grinning
.] I’d like to pick up my axe and swing into this
wall—
Bet I could smash clean through it in a couple of licks!
JANE
: Moony! Why didn’t I marry an ape an’ go live in the zoo?
MOONY
: I don’t know. [
Jane pours the steaming milk into a blue cup
.]
JANE
: Set down an’ drink that. Know what time it is? Four o’clock in the morning!
MOONY
: Four o’clock, huh? [
He continues to move restlessly about
.] Yeah. Soon ole fact’ry whistle be blowin’. Come on, you sonovaguns! Git to
work!—Old
Dutchman be standin’ there with his hands on his little pot-belly, watchin’ ’em punch in their cards. “Hi, dere, Moony,” he says. “Late agin, huh? Vot you tink dis iss maybe, an afdernoon tea?” That’s his joke. You know a Dutchman always has one joke that he keeps pluggin’ at. An’ that’s his. Ev’ry morning the same damn
thing—
JANE:
Yeah?
Well—
MOONY
: “Ha, ha, Moony,” he says, “you been out star-gazin’ las’ night! How many vas dere, Moony? How many stars vas dere out las’ night? Ha, ha,
ha!
”
—[
Strides over to the window
—
flings
it up
.]
JANE
: Put that back down! I ain’t got a stitch a clothes on under this.
MOONY
: I’ll say to him, “Sure, I seen ’em las’ night. But not like they was in Ontario, not by a long shot, Mister.” Grease-bubbles! That’s what they look most like from here. Why, up in the North Woods at
night—
JANE
[
impatiently
]: The North Woods! Put that thing down!
MOONY
: Okay. [
Obeys
.]
JANE
: Here. Drink yer milk. You act like a crazy man, honest to Jesus you do!
MOONY
: Okay. Would that give the Dutchman a laugh!
JANE
: What would? You better be careful.
MOONY
: He’ll go all over the
plant—tell
the boys what Moony said this
morning—said
he’d seen the stars las’ night but not like they was in Ontario when he was choppin’ down the big timber.
JANE
: Yes, you’ll give him a swell impression with talk of that kind. I’m dog-tired. [
Pours herself some of the steaming milk
.]
MOONY
: Ever seen the St. Lawrence River?
JANE
: Naw, I’ve seen wet diapers, that’s all, for so long
that—
!
MOONY
: That’s what I’ll ask the Dutchman. I’ll ask him if he’s ever seen the St. Lawrence River.
JANE
[
glancing at him suspiciously
]: What would you ask him that for?
MOONY
: She’s big. See? She’s nearly as big and blue as the sky is,
an’ the way she flows is straight north. You ever heard of that, Jane? A river that flowed straight north?
JANE
[
indifferently, as she sips her hot milk
]: No.
MOONY
: Only river
I
ever known of that flowed north!
JANE
: Emma says a drop of paregoric would keep his bowels from runnin’ off like that. I think I’ll try it next time.
MOONY
: We was talkin’ about it one day an’ Spook says it’s because the earth is curved down that way toward the Arctic Circle! [
Grins
.]
JANE
: What?
MOONY
: He said that’s why she flows
north—
JANE
: Who cares?
MOONY
: Naw, the Dutchman don’t, neither. That’s why I tell him. Makes it funny, see? I’ll tell him she’s big, damn big, an’ they call her the Lake of a Thousand Islands!
JANE
: He’ll say you’re crazy. He’ll tell you to go an’ jump in it!
MOONY
: Sure he will. That’s what makes it funny. I’ll tell him she’s big an’ blue as the sky is, with firs an’ pines an’ tamaracks on both sides of her fillin’ the whole God-beautiful air
with—the
smell
of—
hot milk, huh? Wouldn’t that give the Dutchman a
laugh!—Hot
milk at four o’clock in the
morning!—He’d
go all over the plant an’ tell the boys that Moony must have his liddle hot milk at night when he goes bye-bye with the Sandman.
JANE
: Louise Krause’s husband commenced sayin’ such things an’ they called out the ambulance squad. Right now he’s in a straitjacket in the psychopathic ward an’ when Louise went up to see him he didn’t remember who she was even! Demen-shuh
pre
-cox they called it! [
Moony seizes cup and dashes milk to floor
.]
Moony!—What
d’yuh think yuh’re doin’, yuh big lug? Sloppin’ good milk on the floor!
MOONY
: Hot milk, huh?
JANE
: Oh, dear Christ! You an’ your kid, what a mess you both are! No wonder they all make fun of you down at the plant. The way that you act there’s only one word for
it—crazy
! [
Moony snorts indignantly
.] Yes, crazy! Crazy is the only word for your actions!
MOONY
: Crazy, huh? Sure them apes think I’m nuts. I’ll tell you why, it’s because I got some original ideas about some things.
JANE
: Original, yeah, you’re so stinkin’ original it ain’t even funny! Believe me if I’d
a-known—
MOONY
: I look at things
diff’runt—
[
Struggling for self-justification
.]
—that’s
all. Other
guys—you
know how it
is—they
don’t care. They eat, they drink, they sleep with their women. What the hell do they care? The sun keeps rising and Saturday night they get paid!—Okay, okay, okay! Some day they kick off. What of it? They got kids to grow up an’ take their places. Work in the plant. Eat, drink, sleep with their
women—an’
get paid Saturday night!—But
me—
[
He laughs bitterly
.] My God, Jane, I want something more than just that!
JANE
: What more do you want, you poor fool? There
ain’t
nothing more than just
that—
Of course if you was rich and could afford a big house and a couple of
limoozines—
MOONY
[
disgustedly
]: Aw,
you—you
don’t even get what I’m aimin’ at, Jane! [
He sinks wearily down on checkered linoleum and winds arms about his knees
.] You never could get it. It’s something that ain’t contagious.
JANE
: Well, I’m glad for that. I’d rather have smallpox.
MOONY
: I found a guy once that did. An old duck up on the river. He got his back hurt, couldn’t work, was waiting to be shipped
home—
We got drunk one night an’ I spilled how I felt about things. He said, “Sure. You ain’t satisfied. Me neither. We want something more than what life ever gives to us, kid.”
JANE
: It gives you what you can get.
MOONY
: Oh, I dunno. I look at my hands sometimes, I look an’ I look at ’em. God, but they look so damn funny!
JANE
: You look at your hands! Such crap!
MOONY
: They’re so kind of empty an’ useless! You get what I mean? I feel like I oughta be doin’ something with these two han’s of mine besides what I’m doin’ now–runnin’ bolts through an everlastin’ chain!
JANE
: Here’s something. [
Flings him a dish rag
.] Try holdin’ this for a change in them wonderful
hands
——
Mop
that milk up off the floor!
MOONY
[
idly twisting the cloth
]: An’ then sometimes I think it ain’t my han’s that’re empty. It’s something else inside me that is.
JANE
: Yeh, it’s probably yer brain. Will you get that milk swabbed up?
MOONY
: It’s already swabbed! [
Rises and stretches
.] Moony’s a free agent. He don’t give a damn what anyone thinks. Live an’ die, says Moony, that’s all there is to it! [
He tosses the wet rag back to the sink
.]
JANE
[
straightening things in a lifeless, ineffectual way
]: Believe me, if I’d a-known you was gonna turn out this way, I’d a-kept my old job. I’d a-said to Mr. O’Connor, “Sure thing! Go ahead an’ get me that chinchilla coat.”
MOONY
: Sure you would. I know it, sweetheart.
JANE
[
beginning to sniffle
]: What’s the good of a girl trying to keep herself straight? The way things turns out, a good proposition like Mr. O’Connor could offer would be the best thing. But no! I had such delusions about cha! You talked so swell! You made such a lovely impression that time we first met!
MOONY
: Lots of water’s run under the bridge since then.
JANE
: Yeah.
MOONY
: When was that, Jane? How long ago was it?
JANE
: Ten months; an’ it seems ten years!
MOONY
: Ten months. And how old’s the kid? One month? Exactly one month?
JANE
[
furiously
]: You’ve got a nerve to say that! As if it was me that insisted, that couldn’t wait even until
we’d
——
MOONY
: Naw, it wasn’t your fault. It was nature got hold of us both that night, Jane. Yuh remember? The Paradise dance-hall down on the waterfront, huh? My first night in town after six months up in the woods. You had on a red silk dress. Yuh remember? Cut down sorta low in front. Hah, you was real pretty
then—your
hair frizzed up in the back in a thousan’ or so little curls that I could just barely poke my littlest finger through!
JANE
[
falling under a nostalgic spell
]: Yeah. [
Her face softens
.] I useter have it done ev’ry Satiddy night. Mamie said she never seen hair that could take such a curl!
MOONY
[
with sly cruelty
]: Yeh, that’s how it
was—them
curls—
an’ the red silk
dress—it
was nature got hold us both that night, huh, Jane?
JANE
[
suspecting an innuendo
]: What d’yuh mean by that?