Tennessee Williams discusses his career

Studs Terkel What is remarkable about that conversation that took place in 1961, 20 years ago, is the prescience of it, the time we're in now and the kind of people who, indeed, have breakdowns now. I was thinking, Tennessee, how close to now that all your plays have been.

Tennessee Williams I think the violence, the brutality has certainly increased. We've had several presidential--we've had two, one presidential assassination, several attempts at assassination, the president--one a couple of days ago, and we've had the assassination of Martin Luther King, and we've had Governor Wallace crippled for, you know, virtually incapacitated for life. You must remember that you are now talking to a man who has gone through what Blanche went through. I've been in an asylum and I've survived. I've come out, whether or not I'm a crackpot, I said in an earlier interview that I was not. I think I'm a man who is, who has the San Andreas Fault built into him, and I'm not confident of the future.

Studs Terkel I was thinking, are you, you know, are you different? I mean, you're the artist, of course, who see these things. Is Blanche DuBois, T. Lyle Shannon or Alma Winemiller--

Tennessee Williams T. Lawrence Shannon, you still get

Studs Terkel That T., T. Lawrence Shannon.

Tennessee Williams Yes.

Studs Terkel And Alma Winemiller, the others who are considered strange, Tennessee Williams--they would say they're--as a Tennessee Williams figure, but are they so different from you, or is it that their sensibility is such, as so many of us are fragile, that at a time of such brutishness they do break down? I find friends of mine, among the most sensitive, who have indeed had nervous breakdowns, to put it mildly.

Tennessee Williams So many people you wouldn't expect to crack up, they do, suddenly. They live behind a facade, that, you know, which a society expects of them and they manage to maintain that facade up to a certain point. Then suddenly, a pressure shows how thin that facade is, because it cracks wide open.

Studs Terkel I was thinking, is there such a thing as a complete person? You said incomplete people. Is there a, who is a--what makes a complete person? If there is any such animal.

Tennessee Williams Oh, perhaps one could be a complete idiot. I don't know, what that would--whether the form of completion is offered to humankind.

Studs Terkel Your plays, Tennessee, I'm thinking from the very beginning, it was here in Chicago, of course, on that Christmastime, the winter of '45 it was, was it not, when we first met Amanda Wingfield.

Tennessee Williams The winter of 1944 and the early spring--

Studs Terkel The spring

Tennessee Williams The spring of '45 we spent about three months here at the little, at the Civic Theatre, yeah.

Studs Terkel And then we saw Amanda, gallant, with her sham sensory--you spoke at the very beginning of this conversation some 20 years ago, you spoke of a double legacy of yours. A mother who you found charming, at the same time putting on an act, and a father was somewhat different, and you inherited both streaks, and later on you recognized your father as having more substance than you originally thought.

Tennessee Williams Oh, all of my fighting spirit comes from--no, both of them are fighters. They--actually, my mother who was only four feet eleven, conquered my father, who was six feet [two?], and but he adored her. Yes, well, I have a double legacy. It's true. Many a multiple legacy.

Studs Terkel Back and before going to St. Louis, you were in Mississippi, and you were the grandson, not too affluent, of a Episcopalian clergyman.

Tennessee Williams Episcopalian clergyman whose salary was around a hundred a month. We moved from parish to parish in the south, you know, and then I went north the--at eight, but I soon returned south. Now, I don't want to just be reviewing my rather well-known, rather overexposed biography. Is there something we can talk

Studs Terkel Let's talk about yourself and theater right now and the plays since '61. Yourself and what you've been--your vision, what you've been striving for and, indeed, in many instances accomplishing. So, where do we? Last time here--we'll talk about your current play. Now, the last time here was Zelda and Scott and "Clothes for a--"

Tennessee Williams "Clothes for a Summer Hotel", which I have re-written, and I carry around with me a great satchel full of nothing but manuscripts. I'm rather puzzled with the fact that so little of my work is produced in Ameri--in New York anymore, because I have theories, but they're not the sort of theories I wish to express right now. I have much better luck in England and in Europe.

Studs Terkel You've--

Tennessee Williams Even in Japan.

Studs Terkel You've just touched on something interesting, and that's a New York and American commercial theater and a playwright. In European theater, as a playwright of your stature, you know, the playwright of a country, of a society, is always honored, no matter what the play is that he writes. There is tremendous respect for his work. They might like some better than others, but somehow here, you have to start as though you had written nothing before. I mean, it's an astonishing fact that a Tennessee Williams play, they pick it up and see, as though you were a beginning player, as though there were no past. I think I'm hitting on something. It's as though we have no sense of history or past, whether it be a society or an individual, in this case an artist.

Tennessee Williams I don't know how to explain that. But it does. It is true, yeah. I think that every American writer has suffered terribly from that. I happen right now to be reading the collected letters of Ernest Hemingway. They're heart-breaking, with that poor man went through after well, his top work was, of course, "Sun Also Rises". "Farewell to Arms" was also a great work. "For Whom the Bell Tolls" they tell me was a great work. I rarely read a piece of fiction that's three and a half inches thick. So I only read bits of that, but there was always that impeccable, that matchless style.

Studs Terkel Does this have to be? I mean, we come now to the question of--

Tennessee Williams Yet, here was a man who'd so desired death at the end that he tried to walk into the propeller of an airplane. Then he tried to leap from the airplane, he tried to break the door open and leap from an airplane. Finally, he blew out his brains with a elephant gun or something of the sort. It accomplished his death.

Studs Terkel I'm thinking about yourself and the plays you've done. There's always this lyric quality to your plays, in the language itself. I'm not the first, of course, this has been one of your hallmarks, but the heroes and heroines are always a particular kind of person who I think, perhaps in all of us, there is this kind of wanting and not quite certain how to face up to it against, in a society or a framework that is so rough and tough.

Tennessee Williams I tell you, I have two kinds, at least two kinds of dominant blood in me. And that is, I am a fighter. I really am a terrific fighter. I had to summon various allies, but I managed to, declined to be thrown out of a hotel suite, on the day of opening. That is the fighting Williams blood in me.

Studs Terkel Battling Williams.

Tennessee Williams Battling Williams, yeah.

Studs Terkel Battling Williams, with 145 pounds.

Tennessee Williams Many battle scars.

Studs Terkel But there you are, surviving and creating throughout. Throughout, no matter how.

Tennessee Williams Thank God. Thank God. I think when I stop creating, I'll be willing to stop breathing.

Studs Terkel But you'll be doing this, this is part of your very being. Could we talk, perhaps, about those "Clothes for a Summer Night" and those--the

Tennessee Williams "Clothes for a Summer Hotel", about the Fitzgeralds. People thought it presumptuous of me to write about the Fitzgeralds, yet I felt that I had experienced all of their problems, both their problems, I mean. I'd experienced my sister's madness, which is very like Zelda's, and my own, actually, because I had a period of mental breakdown. And then I had experienced early fame, as has Scott Fitzgerald, and then the humiliation that follows when you fall out of fashion.

Studs Terkel So it's fashion we're talking about, too, aren't we?

Tennessee Williams No. "Fashion" is a word. When you fall out of favor is, perhaps, the preferable word.

Studs Terkel Favor and fashion. Isn't fashion, as an "a la mode" aspect, the boffo hit, the kid of the moment.

Tennessee Williams Well, I've never--yes. I hope you're not making fun of me.

Studs Terkel No, no, no, no, no no. There's a phrase Lillian Hellman once used, talking about this very theme, "the kid of the moment" is what they think of.

Tennessee Williams Maybe American society does think in those terms. I just want to still have available to me great artists. Because my work needs great artists. My work should not be produced in a studio with a narrow proscenium which does not permit me to have the amount of space that I require. I am lucky in having excellent actors here in Chicago, but I need to work on a big stage.

Studs Terkel I'm thinking before I ask you about your current play now being performed in progress I assume at the Goodman, the roles you've written, primarily for women, men as well of course, but you're one of the few male playwrights, I don't know any other male who is able to somehow get into the psyche of a certain kind of woman, and so the actresses, from Laurette Taylor on, through Geri Page, to Maureen Stapleton to Margaret Leighton, you had magnificent actresses, and yet the roles have been for them so incredibly juicy.

Tennessee Williams Yes. I think people are inclined to overlook certain very vivid male roles that I've created like the gentleman caller Jim O'Connor in "The Glass Menagerie". They don't remember the tremendous power, perhaps, of Big Daddy of, I don't see how they could forget it. And T. Lawrence Shannon was a third and masculine person despite his sensibilities. I think of any number of plays I've written strong male parts, but fortunately I'm able to create female parts, too. I think, perhaps I do them better, yes.

Studs Terkel No, I'm saying very few male playwrights have been able to do that. Generally they have the strong male, when in your case it's both, I think. Big Daddy is a perfect case in point. And here Burl Ives was a singer. Burl Ives was primarily a singer and suddenly became a fine actor because of, I think it's primarily his own talents as well, but the idea of Big Daddy as a great study of Southern power, of power you might say in some community, in any community.

Tennessee Williams That's right. I was somewhat offended when, with the early sequences of a television show called "Dallas", because the man who owned the great estate there in "Dallas", he seemed to be somewhat a copy of Big Daddy, and also quite coincidentally, Barbara Bel Geddes, who played Maggie in "Cat On a Hot Tin Roof", was in that series, too, but then I thought, "Oh, well." Soon they soon ran out of material resembling "Cat", and they'd gone into all kinds of--

Studs Terkel You know that, well, of course there is a, you're talking about now, cannibalism. There is a cannibalism in the taking, stealing you have--well, you mentioned "Dallas", of course you can't compare the two, "Dallas", and what you've done, and yet it's remarkable how commercial property is, and the word is property, how producers all--the schlock makers and shakers are able to steal from others' good and profane it. But this is part of--do you remember the movie "Red Shoes"? It wasn't a great movie.

Tennessee Williams I remember it, about ballet dancers, yes.

Studs Terkel But there was a wonderful scene there, in which a young playwright, a young composer is saying, "The man stole my work." And the producer said, "Forget about him. There's more where that came from." And, so, in a sense, it's you, too.

Tennessee Williams Oh, I don't allow it to bother me much.

Studs Terkel Tennessee, the play now, being performed in the small theater at the Goodman, "A House Not Meant to Stand".

Tennessee Williams Yes. It's not a very catchy title, but when you see the play, it becomes a very pertinent one. And as I said, I don't think I can afford to work again in the studio at the Goodman, because I've had to support both the director and the man who, his friend who provides the music. I've had to support them and it takes quite a feat. Expensive.

Studs Terkel I was thinking of the play itself, the theme, I haven't seen it yet, so it's ridiculous

Tennessee Williams I'm going off on some tangent which is quite non-pertinent as well.

Studs Terkel I was thinking of the play itself.

Tennessee Williams The play itself. I rarely can arrive at a definitive opinion of a work until a year or so after its definitive production.

Studs Terkel Now, I was thinking of the substance of it.

Tennessee Williams The substance of it, yes. The substance of it is about the difficulty of holding together an American family in the South or anywhere. It depends a great deal on humor, and yet the end is, there's a kind of sadness, it's tragicomedy. It's also gothic comedy. There's going to be a third draft of it, but it will require a large scale, a large stage, and--

Studs Terkel You just said gothic comedy, the word "gothic" attracts me here, because I think of something--

Tennessee Williams Well, the comedy is way out and somewhat grotesque.

Studs Terkel Yeah, but also, gothic, meaning something beyond the reality and at times horrifying--

Tennessee Williams At times it breaks the fourth wall, people suddenly address the audience, yes.

Studs Terkel And aren't these gothic times we live in?

Tennessee Williams Indeed, yes. I think so. I don't think anyone quite believes what they're hearing on newscasts.

Studs Terkel And something is as though life has caught up with art. It's as though your play is, seem to have people, some would say, far out, different, so far removed from me, yet the very--we spoke of the prescience of your comments in the 1961 conversation. We're talking now 1981, and that which was considered way out, the character situations in your plays, so highly dramatic and theatrical, are really realistic now.

Tennessee Williams Oh, yes. Society has, society followed that pattern, and more or less, and we are living in times that seem to be, in a society that seems to be struggling, struggling fiercely against disintegration.

Studs Terkel And, so, when you write of the disintegration of a certain--

Tennessee Williams This family in the "House Not Meant to Stand" is fighting desperately against disintegration. It's leaking in the rain. There are several pails set around to catch the leaks. The house in a way is a metaphor for our society.

Studs Terkel The house we live in right now. There used to be a song in the palmy days we say, in the innocent days, a song called "The House I Live In", there was supposed to be America, metaphorical song, and how great it is, and you're saying the house has leaks in it, and--

Tennessee Williams Many, many, many, one [with good? that could?] in Washington couple of days ago.

Studs Terkel You know, and also the people live in it, now we come, because you deal with people who are not simple. They're not cartoon figures, and they have [to? the?] flesh, but also the ambiguities in them. And in an earlier play, "Summer and Smoke", Alma Winemiller is bucking both a Puritanism in her, you know. At the same time there's a wildness. There's a phrase said about your characters, caged, or perhaps you used it, "caged within our own skin."

Tennessee Williams That's true. Yes, Alma was caught in this cage of Puritanism, but was battling inside her something even stronger, which was her desperate need for love. For realization and love. And that prevailed in the end to the point where she was willing, when finally she gave up on the great love, great romantic love of her life, she was finally willing to settle for attractive younger salesman whom she met at the--

Studs Terkel Park.

Tennessee Williams Railroad station.

Studs Terkel Railroad station.

Tennessee Williams Or later on in "Eccentricities of a Nightingale" she goes to the railroad station to meet with him.

Studs Terkel Oh, by the way, you're not afraid to vary on a theme.

Tennessee Williams No, no, no.

Studs Terkel Because "Eccentricities of a Nightingale" became a variant, another form of "Summer

Tennessee Williams Yeah, it's my appro--it's one I prefer, although they made an opera of "Summer and Smoke", which is much more moving as a play, I believe. I didn't like the diagrammatic quality of "Summer and Smoke" so much. There are one

Studs Terkel Lee Hoiby?

Tennessee Williams Lee Hoiby has made an opera that PBS has now acquired.

Studs Terkel So we come by you and music. That's interesting.

Tennessee Williams I've always loved music.

Studs Terkel But your words and the music. So they lend themselves, do they not, to?

Tennessee Williams Well, yes, I presume they must. I pay a great deal of attention to cadence, you know. I won't write a line that's [as?] cadence. And if a syllable is omitted, the cadence falls apart and I insist on its restoration, or I rewrite

Studs Terkel And I thought during this conversation I might slip in, Lee Hoiby was a guest here once, might slip in.

Tennessee Williams He's a very dear man.

Studs Terkel And might slip in one of the passages from the opera.

Tennessee Williams Oh, sure would.

Studs Terkel And that'll fit, perhaps, right here. And as we listen to this passage, the words of Tennessee Williams, the play, the origin is Tennessee Williams, the music is Hoiby's, we come back to the question of theater, lyric, I suppose the word "lyric theater" would be a description of your way, wouldn't

Tennessee Williams Yes, I think that's as good an overall description of my--the kind of theater to which I aspire as any.

Studs Terkel Yours is continuous, isn't it, Tennessee? That's the writing, it's a continuous matter with you, no matter what difficulty you may experience.

Tennessee Williams Yes, yes, even after all this struggle with the hotel manager to not be evicted the day of the play opening. I was still able to write a bit.

Studs Terkel You know what I call this? This is Tennessee battling the elements.

Tennessee Williams That's very funny,

Studs Terkel You know, it's W.C. Fields and the picket fence.

Tennessee Williams You know what W.C. Fields had on his tombstone? "All in all, I'd rather be in Philly."

Studs Terkel But you right now, now here's this play. In your case it's continuously battling and creating and this is it, even after this play, no matter what happens to it, and I trust it will be a success eventually as you will rewrite it and be produced, you will continue as far as your writing is concerned.

Tennessee Williams Yes. As I remarked a while ago, when my--when I'm no longer able to create at what I regard as an acceptable level, I'll turn in my--

Studs Terkel Chips.

Tennessee Williams Chips, yeah.

Studs Terkel Cash in your chips. We have a long way to go before that. You know what's so funny? I'm going to say something personal. In that interview in 20 years ago, you said, "I'm 50." And I said, "Well, that's just the beginning." And you said, "Don't kid me, my friend. That's about it." Now it's 20 years later.

Tennessee Williams Now, I'll tell you a funny story, if you're in the mood for one. When I was 24 I had my first heart attack. It got me out of the shoe business. And--

Studs Terkel You were selling shoes?

Tennessee Williams No, I was a clerk in the branch at the International Shoe Company in St. Louis. Terrible job, for which I was paid $65 a month. Well, I worked at night with black coffee, and it affected my heart, and at 24 I had my first heart attack. I went down to Memphis to see my grandparents, and one evening I had a recurrence of the palpitations while at dinner with some friends downtown, and a lady doctor was summoned. She said, "Your heart's, you're too uptight now, I'll examine you in my office tomorrow." And after all this, she examined me carefully, and she said, "Don't worry too much. You might live to be 40."

Studs Terkel Now we're talking about something that happened 46 years ago. So, so much for doctors, so much for prognoses.

Tennessee Williams I tell you, as long as you're devoted to a certain--you have a certain commitment to a thing, it's astonishing how you can hang in until you fulfill that commitment to your--that's, you know, you're never going to defeat death altogether. No, although that was a Black bishop last night who claimed that I've been reincarnated several times and will be again.

Studs Terkel Well, we're talking about battling. Survi--accident. Not being pacific about things.

Tennessee Williams You can't be. Those people who think you can get through life without a terrific struggle are deluding themselves, especially when it comes to the world of theater. You always have to have your gloves on. It doesn't mean you always have to be macho, macho. I couldn't be that. There are moments when I can be when I have to be, though.

Studs Terkel Well, it's a question of struggling and battling, and because you battle, you survive to live another day and to fight another battle and to create another play.

Tennessee Williams That's my purpose in being, my raison d'etre, yes.

Studs Terkel You do many things, we're talking about story you've written. You write poetry, of course, and some excellent stories. "The Roman Spring", the--

Tennessee Williams "The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone", yes, and "The Nightly Quest", that was another novella. Sometimes I think my stories are, really, are better writing than my plays.

Studs Terkel And you work in several forms.

Tennessee Williams And that's a well known, but.

Studs Terkel You work in several forms.

Tennessee Williams Yeah. Of course.

Studs Terkel You wrote a very good ballad once for the singer Jeri Southern, if I remember right.

Tennessee Williams Which

Studs Terkel You wrote a song. I've got it here somewhere if I can find it. You wrote a song. You don't remember writing a song for a singer, Jeri Southern? J-E-R-I?

Tennessee Williams Well, I've written a number of lyrics meant to be put to music, yes. Paul Bowles, the marvelous writer and musician, has put a number of them to music. Unfortunately, I can't carry a tune, so I can't--

Studs Terkel So it's lyricist, lyricist, poet, story writer, playwright.

Tennessee Williams Playwright, yes. Is it all right to say "son of a bitch"?

Studs Terkel Any--I suppose that's an art form in itself, isn't it?

Tennessee Williams It's something you learn in show business.

Studs Terkel Of course, someone would say, some would say about Thomas "Tennessee" Williams right now, Tom Williams, they'd say, "Tennessee, you sound bitter." This is my joke for now, you sound bitter. That's an understatement.

Tennessee Williams Bitter? No, no, I'm not bitter. I just think I recognize life. I began to recognize it rather early when I thought I might drop dead at any moment. And now I'm less bitter. You know, I try to get as much pleasure as I can out of each day as it comes along, because I know the days grow short as you reach--

Studs Terkel November or December.

Tennessee Williams September. But November [my gait? might gate?] or maybe late

Studs Terkel December, way to go.

Tennessee Williams And anyway, the thing is not to be scared. It's very important not to be frightened.

Studs Terkel Could we stick with that for a minute. This matter, everybody gets scared one time or another about something or other. But it's to overcome that, isn't it? When you first--

Tennessee Williams To face fear and not blink your eyes. Yeah. That's very important, because you have to face fear as part of your, it's a protective device built into you.

Studs Terkel Let's go back to, on that, let's go back to '44, the spring of '44, a young playwright, "Glass Menagerie". Your thoughts at that moment when the play is being seen here at the Civic Theatre in Chicago for the first time. Do you remember your feelings at that moment?

Tennessee Williams I was always happy, relatively happy in my youth. Of course, a love life was much more accessible, and that has a lot to do with happiness outside of work, you know.

Studs Terkel I'm thinking about you the young playwright, work as yet unknown, work as yet untested, and there you were, and there's Claudia Cassidy and Ashton Stevens and people didn't know about the play, and they said, "You must see it," and then bang. There's Laurette Taylor, the others. And then there's New York, and then there's you.

Tennessee Williams Yes, even with Laurette Taylor, now I'm trust I'm answering what, the question, even with Laurette Taylor, the audiences were not altogether, you know, sold on the play. They considered it downbeat, they considered it eclectic in form, you know, but this great Claudia Cassidy, her spirit is so indomitable and so beautiful, and the late Ashton Stevens, together they sold Chicago on "The Glass Menagerie". I think we would have expired without them, we certainly would have, I think, even with Laurette Taylor. But any play of mine which is in a new genre, and almost all my new plays now has its own genre, its own type. This one particular. Particularly. The precise name of the genre to which it belongs I haven't yet discovered. I will in the third draft, perhaps, but it certainly is not going to be realism or anything like that. I have a restless nature. I want to move from form to form within drama.

Studs Terkel So there's a new form, as there's another advance here.

Tennessee Williams Yes, but unless it's supported by the critics, it's not going to fare well any more than "Glass Menagerie" would have. Not that I think it's the equal of "Glass Menagerie", it isn't.

Studs Terkel Could there be a play--suppose, there, and this is an academic question, perhaps a silly one. Suppose there were no critics. Critics serve a purpose, no doubt. Claudia Cassidy and Stevens certainly served a most important purpose in making the audience aware of something that was rare and rich. But I think of critics, New York critics specifically, because they're so powerful, and what an individual can do or a couple can do to a play and the audience doesn't get a chance to judge for itself. Now, the question comes up. Suppose there were no critics. And this is one of those crazy questions.

Tennessee Williams Now that television has become so accessible to nearly all people, the theater needs to be promoted, subsidized. We need people who love theater to criticize plays and to guide public taste, which have been corrupted to a large degree by certain cheap entertainment.

Studs Terkel My question was an academic one, obviously. We, of course we need critics as you say, to, it has to be that because of what happens to it, but you said something about subsidized theater. So we come to the age-old question, when we speak of a subsidized theater, say by the state.

Tennessee Williams Yes.

Studs Terkel In many European countries, I'm talking about Western European now, let alone Eastern. People say, "Oh, the heavy hand of censorship will be here." But there's another censorship here, and that's the box office.

Tennessee Williams Yes. And that's why we need these critics with their passionate love for serious theater to sell our work, to point out to the public that it is offering them something that they will not be offered by TV networks except PBS.

Studs Terkel Now I'm thinking about governmental subsidized theater.

Tennessee Williams I don't think they, there are many strings attached to what they subsidize. Now, the Goodman is a subsidized theater, and yet Gregory Mosher is quite daring, and he'll put on plays that you wouldn't expect to be popular successes. And the critics have often gone with him and helped him to put them over.

Studs Terkel Now, I was thinking of actually government subsidized, like we know for example in Germany there are many civically subsidized theaters, state, city subsidized theater, in Sweden, in England, we know this is so, and there has been no censorship in that sense, see.

Tennessee Williams I think they are probably wise enough not to interfere too much.

Studs Terkel Tennessee, what thoughts come to your mind now? Anything you feel like talking about, any base that we haven't touched you feel like stepping on now?

Tennessee Williams Not really. Not really, Studs. We talked about as much--not in my professional life now. It may be drawing close to a conclusion. At any rate, it has extended over threescore and ten year. I mean, my life has extended over three score years and ten. I've been working in theater since 1934, first in amateur, by 1940 in professional theater. I don't think we've left out anything of importance that I have to say.

Studs Terkel You said plenty, but your writing even more, and this is a belated congratulations on your 70th birthday. And to continue now, we think of the place--how old was Sophocles when--

Tennessee Williams I haven't investigated.

Studs Terkel You haven't investigated. Well, he was about 80, wasn't he, or so?

Tennessee Williams I've--yes, but they lived longer in those days. The air was purer, the water was purer, there were less crackpots with pistols loose in the world.

Studs Terkel The air wasn't as polluted.

Tennessee Williams That's true.

Studs Terkel Tennessee Williams. Playwright. A magnificent one, indeed. We look for more of your--congratulations on what you've done, and of course a salute to what you will do. And thank you very much indeed.

Tennessee Williams Thank you, Studs. You can give us some music [to end on?].