Playwright on a Hot Tin Roof

(a very obscure satirist)

Although Tennessee Williams' latest Broadway play, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, is a popular success, and his Rose Tattoo has now been filmed for the delectation of the masses, there was a time when Mr. Williams wrote for only a select few. His one-act play about the last hours of D. H. Lawrence, I Rise in Flame Cried the Phoenix, first appeared in a limited edition -- limited, that is, to people who had fifteen dollars to spend on a single slender book.

The public's response to this elite edition may be inferred by the fact that the play was suubsequently reprinted in a 50c paperback volume also containing thirty-three other pieces of contemporary writing. It was in this bargain-basement form that it came to my attention, promptly inspiring me to write a play of my own. Any resemblance to Mr. Williams' play is, of course, unintentional, coincidental, and entirely malicious. If you'll be good enough to stop rustling that program, we'll give the signal for the house lights to dim and the rich velour curtain to rise . . .

The scene is a veranda in Venice. Languishing intensely in a wheel-chair is a person strongly resembling the famous Gay F. Swish, author of After Coitus -- What?, Other Weskits Other Bangs, and a host of even more controversial volumes. A characteristic flutter of the transparent eyelids, a phlegmy sigh and the ghost of a petulant sneer confirm our suspicions: it is, indeed, Gay F. Swish. We recognize now the well-publicized sunken cheeks, the flashing eyes of the color of wet cigar-ash, the inch-(continued on page 24)Hot Tin Roof(continued from page 17) long lipless mouth, the notorious mauve locks and beige beard which caused a continent to whisper "Are they dyed?" When we first see him, he is speaking. Since there is nobody else on stage, we might well wonder if G. F. has mislaid his marbles, but the more discerning souls among us will readily realize that he is indulging in a pastime proper to a poet -- speaking to the sun.

Swish: Don't try to hide

Behind that flimsy negligee

Of a cloud, you shameless wanton.

I see you.

I know what you're trying to do.

Old Health-Giver, eh?

Old Vitamin-Enriched!

You may fool them, you sizzling bitch,

But not old Gay!

Oh, no!

(His voice rises to a soprano shriek as he shakes his bony fist at the sky.)

I know your tricks!

You envy me, who bared my soul

To Life's enriching rays

And blossomed 'til I fairly burst

With juice!

A human grape -- that's what I am --

Swollen with potential wine!

And you -- oh, damn your jealous heat --

Why do you scorch me thus?

I know!

You want to make of me

A raisin!

(Enter WILHELMINA, his mistress, carrying a small phial of amber fluid.)

Wilhelmina: Sprechen Sie deutsch?

Swish: No, thank you.

I'm not hungry.

And -- if it's not asking too much --

Let's speak in English, shall we?

Wilhelmina: Who were you talking to?

Swish: Nobody.

Wilhelmina: But I heard you.

Swish: Oh, very well, you old hausfrau:

If you must know,

I was talking to my ancient enemy,

My nemesis,

That arch-fiend ...

Wilhelmina: Your bladder?

Swish: No, you insensitive Guernsey!

The sun!

Wilhelmina: You mean --

Swish: Yes.

Wilhelmina: But that's --

Swish: I know.

Wilhelmina: It's not ...

Swish: It is.

Wilhelmina: I see.

Swish: Willy!

Wilhelmina: Yes?

Swish: Never mind;

You wouldn't understand.

How could you?

You, mundanity incarnate! The essence of the everyday!

But why should I single out you

For this censure?

You're no different than all the others.

You're all alike, you women,

With your bovine eyes,

Your bird brains,

Your same old double-breasted comfort:

Lord! For a different woman!

A woman with three breasts!

Wilhelmina: You're crazy, Gay. Swish (to the sun) : Quiet, you bitch!

Wilhelmina: That was me speaking.

Swish: Oh. Quiet, you cow!

What's that you have in your hand?

Wilhelmina: It's-- --

Swish: Give it here!

Trying to sneak away with it, eh?

It's for me! I know it's for me!

A gift!

An offering from some timid vestal

Placed tremblingly at the altar

Of her god:

The almighty Swish! --

Swish, the lover and beloved,

The seeker and the sought,

The conqueror, the conquered,

The inscrutable, the scrutable,

The day, the night,

The black, the white,

The male, the female!

Give it to me, damn your eyes!

(He seizes the phial and holds it to the sun.)

Ah! How unspeakably lovely!

What can it be,

This golden-amber presence,

This prisoned bit of sunlight liquefied?

I know!

This is the month of August put in a bottle!

Wilhelmina: Don't be silly. That's your urine specimen. I'm taking it to the doctor this afternoon.

(He dashes it to the floor.)

Swish: Cursed!

That's what I am!

Cursed with commoness!

(One perfect tear glistens on his cheek.)

Don't ever leave me, you heifer.

Remain with me always

And comfort me with

Your sublime stolidity,

Your density,

Your all-enveloping envelope.

Wilhelmina: Now, don't get fresh. Swish: Fresh ...

How ironic. If only one could

Get fresh. Unsullied. Innocent again.

But no. One just accumulates

The ordure of the years ...

The veins become sewers,

The mind, a cesspool of nastiness.

And so we terminate our lives

As offal. Our tombstones should be

Chamber pots. And that reminds me:

Where in hell is Ermatrude?

Wilhelmina: She's here.

Swish (leaping from his chair like a young gazelle, executing two perfect entre-chats, and draping himself like a withered rose over a lectern which supports a bound volume of Marie Stopes' collected works):

Here? How long has she been here?

Wilhelmina: She just arrived. She's spending a quarter-hour in meditation before entering your presence.

Swish: How fitting.

Send the darling in!

(The door bursts open and a dowdy English matron throws herself at his feet.)

Ermatrude: Oh, Gay!

I was trembling by the door,

Waiting for you to admit me!

Swish: Arise, old faithful.

And tell me -- how did it go?

What did London say about My poems?

Ermatrude (in a still, small voice): Nothing.

Swish (summoning a modicum of puny thunder): Nothing!?

Ermatrude (almost inaudible): Nothing.

Swish (his brow ashen): You mean --

Ermatrude: Yes.

Swish: But that's--

Wilhelmina: Oh, let's

Not go through that again!

Ermatrude: How grieved I am to tell you this,

Instead of tidings of success.

Swish: Success?!

You know I hate it.

No!

I longed for scorn,

For indignation,

For epithets of philistine and rival

Hurled like pebbles

At the stout Gibraltar of my flaming Genius.

Wilhelmina: There you go! Mixing your metaphors again!

Swish: Oh, woman!

Surely you know

My opinion of such pedantry.

Pure metaphors, indeed!

Bourgeois nonsense!

How can they compare

With the kaleidoscopic imagery

Of my perfectly blended,

Richly selective,

Artfully mixed variety? (turning suddenly to ERMATRUDE)

But tell me -- Were they not puzzled

By my poem, Fovea?

(Eyes closed, the back of one hand to his forehead, the other oratorically outstretched, he recites:) "Why, then, does the heart stumble

And the myriad knuckles of the spine flake

One by one into a rosary of icy stares

When through the mottled scrim of ret rospect

A sheen returns of acrid light

Clinking off the tan of muscled terror? Chuckles,

Grim and sensual, tight and tawny,

Curve in cobalt echo from the

Slim

Flat

Surge

And rippling glint of naso-labial gash.

Seek musty refuge here of course as always."

(Opening his eyes):

Did they not marvel at that?

Eh?

Ermatrude: They only ...

Swish: Yes, yes?

Ermatrude: ... Shrugged.

Swish: Oh gods. But what about

The puritans? The censors?

Were they not offended by

Onan's Soliloquy?

(Striking the same attitude as before, he again recites:)

"Rather than this stud-horse office, (concluded on page 65)Hot Tin Roof(continued from page 24)

Out! thou ophic traitor!

Bend

Thy fevered corded straining

To that

Earth whence Adam first

Congealed.

Oh lurch

Ye glabrous mace

Yea! blast away

Again again again!

And thou

O splotch

Lie glimmering and viscous

Growing algid in

The powdery dust

Whilst upward writhing

Weaves thy pungent foetor

To meet

My nostrils' proud triumphant

Sneer."

Well? Didn't the police find that obscene?

Ermatrude: No, Gay.

Swish: Why not? The fools!

Ermatrude: It seems they just

Didn't know what it was

All about.

(He collapses into his wheel-chair.)

Swish (weakly): It's just as well.

That's what I truly yearned for

In the secret places of my heart:

Obscurity.

Blessed cool and evergreen

Obscurity!

Success is vulgar; failure, vile:

One is for shams, the other for fools.

There is but one appropriate destiny

For the superartist --

Obscurity!

Thank Heaven for it.

(He smiles blandly at ERMATRUDE)

Did you bring them?

Ermatrude: Bring what?

Swish: You know what!

Ermatrude (aghast): Oh! Gay--I forgot!

Swish (slowly rising): You forgot!?

Ermatrude: Yes! Oh, forgive me, Gay!

Swish: Forgive you? Never!

How can I go on without them?

Perfidy, thy name is Woman!

Wilhelmina: What's wrong, Gay?

What did she forget?

Swish: The dyes!

The dyes for my hair and beard!

Oh, get out! Both of you --

Get out!

Let me not suffer

From the presence of women

These last remaining days!

Leave me alone with

My first,

My last,

My only,

My eternal ... Love!

(He embraces a large mirror, up center, as --)

The Curtain Falls