Cat on a Hot Tin Roof by Tennessee Williams (1955)

Summary:  Adult brothers Brick and Gooper, accompanied by their wives and (in Gooper's case) children, are visiting their parents at the family plantation situated on 28,000 acres in Mississippi.  Big Daddy, their father, has been diagnosed with terminal cancer and the brothers must find a way to relay the bad news to both of their parents, while each jockeying for a larger portion of the family inheritance (over ten million dollars in liquid assets alone).

While the circumstances create a tense situation; the primary tension of the play surrounds Brick's sexuality. Brick has been married to Maggie for years, though the two have never produced a child.  Maggie (the highly sexualized cat on a hot tin roof) and Big Daddy both accost Brick about his sexuality and the drinking problem that began when his best "friend" Skipper died.  

Early in the play, Maggie tells Brick, "Later tonight I'm going to tell you I love you an' maybe by that time you'll be drunk enough to believe me" (38).  In the final scene of the play, Maggie announces to the family that she is pregnant with Brick's child, thus making "Big Daddy's dream come true" and securing their larger portion of the family fortune (168).  In the final moments of the play, the family leaves the room and Maggie tells Brick that she has locked up the liquor and won't give it back until he has sex with her.  She states, "Tonight we're going to make the lie true, and when that's done, I'll bring the liquor back here and we'll get drunk together, here, tonight, in this place that death has come into" (173).  She adds that she loves him, and the play concludes with Brick's final statement, "Wouldn't it be funny if that was true?" (173).  

Thoughts:  For months, I've been thinking that I had read this play before and simply didn't remember it, but that is not the case.  This was definitely my first read of this play and I greatly enjoyed it.

Seven years after winning his first Pulitzer for A Streetcar Named Desire, this play involves many of the same subject areas (dysfunctional family, tension with in-laws, gay issues, alcohol, fighting).  Earlier in the project, I wrote about being in awe of Edward Albee's fight scenes...and this is an area where Tennessee Williams also excels, particularly within the confines of a very tense family situation.  While Maggie is constantly complaining about the children being vaguely annoying, they have little effect on the play with one exception.  When she is attempting to scold one of her nieces, the child (named Dixie) says to her, "You're jealous!  You're just jealous because you can't have babies!"  (62).  Williams' stage direction before Dixie's line reads, "With a precocious instinct for the cruelest thing."  Even the children at the periphery of this family know how to throw trump cards in a fight.

While Williams' plays are favorites of actors, he also uses stage directions to make the texts highly readable.  Instead of using stage directions simply for the most basic of blocking and emotional cues, he includes a great deal of information about his characters in these italicized pieces of text.  Moments after Big Daddy has suggested that Brick's relationship with Skipper was, "not, well, exactly normal", the stage directions note: 

"Brick's detachment is at last broken through.  His heart is accelerated; his forehead sweat-beaded, his breath becomes more rapid and his voice hoarse.  The thing they're discussing, timidly and painfully on the side of Big Daddy, fiercely, violently on Brick's side, is the inadmissible thing that Skipper died to disavow between them.  The fact that if it existed it had to be disavowed to "keep face" in the world they lived in, may be at the heart of the "mendacity" that Brick drinks to kill his disgust with.  It may be the root of his collapse.  Or maybe it is only a single manifestation of it, not even the most important.  The bird that I hope to catch in the net of this play is not the solution of one man's psychological problem.  I'm trying to catch the true quality of existence in a group of people, that cloudy, flickering, evanescent--fiercely charged!--interplay of live human beings in the thundercloud of a common crisis.  Some mystery should be left in the revelation of character in a play, just as a great deal of mystery is always left in the revelation of character in life, even in one's own character to himself.  This does not absolve the playwright of his duty to observe and probe as clearly and deeply as he legitimately can:  but it should steer him away from "pat" conclusions, facile definitions which make a play just a play, not a snare for the truth of human experience.  

[The following scene should be played with great concentration, with most of the power leashed but palpable in what is left unspoken.]" Act 2, 116-117). 

Angels in America: Millennium Approaches by Tony Kushner (1993)

Summary:  After being diagnosed with AIDS, Prior Walter is visited by the voice of an angel who ominously announces that "Millennium Approaches."  As Walter deals with the angel and his own relationship to Louis, other individuals and relationships are explored.  These include:
Joe and Harper--a transplanted Mormon couple drawn to homosexuality and Valium, respectively.
The very real Roy Cohn--attempting to hide the fact that he has full-blown AIDS by saying that it is Liver Cancer.
Belize--a sometimes drag queen, sometimes nurse who is loyal in his friendship to Prior and therefore skeptical of Louis.
The lives of these characters intertwine throughout the full-length play (set in the mid-80s in New York City) until finally, The Angel (no longer just a voice) bursts through Prior's ceiling proclaiming, "Greetings, Prophet.  The Great Work begins:  The Messenger has arrived."  The play ends and audiences are left to anticipate and speculate about Part Two:  Perestroika.

Thoughts:  I dreaded writing the plot summary above for days because so much happens in the first installment of Kushner's epic two-part drama.  However, though the play is expansive, the exploration of character is generally more important than the advancement of a very broad plot.

Very recently, my friend Katelyn Wood attended a lecture given by Meryl Streep (who won an Emmy for her work in Mike Nichols' filmed adaptation of the play) in the Department of Theatre and Dance at the University of Texas at Austin.  Katelyn asked Streep about Tony Kushner and the continued relevance of Angels in America in a world where the play is increasingly less controversial.  Streep referred to Kushner as "the playwright of our time" and remarked extensively about the characters he creates, all extremely flawed in their humanity. 

All of the central characters in Angels in America are important to the advancement of plot; but moreover, they have their own flaws and personal struggles that do not always depend on interactions with others.  Often in the dramatic literature of the 20th century, rich characters are unveiled primarily through depictions of their interactions with others.  Kushner instead makes use of extensive monologues about emotions rather than argument scenes (which are often used to propel dramatic action).  While these monologues could quickly become whiny, redundant or simply boring...Kushner's ability to create multidimensional human characters makes us wonder what these characters are going to say, feel and do next.

A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams (1948)

Summary:  Blanche Dubois arrives in New Orleans to visit her sister Stella.  It is immediately clear that Blanche is unaccustomed to city life and uncomfortable around blue-collar workers like Stanley (Stella's husband).  Pregnant Stella attempts to keep the peace while her husband and sister antagonize each other.  Eventually, fueled by frustration, Stanley does some sleuthing and discovers that Blanche left Mississippi because she had acquired quite a reputation and had no other place to go.  Late in the play, Stanley and Blanche have implied (non-consensual?) sex.  Subsequently, Blanche is taken to a mental institution.

Thoughts:  I feel a great deal of pressure to come up with some "thoughts" about one of the most famous (and read) plays on the list.  Though this was not my first read of this play, I continue to be impressed by Williams' craftsmanship.

While the main characters in this play (arguably Blanche and Stanley) do unlikeable things, they are not unlikeable people.  Flawed?  Yes.   Unlikeable?  Certainly not.  Because they are two very different people, Williams uses two dynamic techniques to reveal their individual humanity to audiences.  Blanche is most vulnerable when delivering a monologue to Mitch (a potential admirer) about her deceased husband (a gay man who committed suicide in front of her after she told him that he disgusted her).  In contrast, Stanley's vulnerability is glaringly on display after a fight with Stella.  Following the violent outburst, he returns to his wife in a pitiful, remorseful and childlike state.  While Stella is able to see the humanity in both her sister and husband, neither Stanley nor Blanche develop sympathy for each other.  Instead, the spirit of antagonism builds to an unsavory climax.

William's Introduction is conspicuously not about the likely controversial story to follow; but is about his own process as an artist and how the success of The Glass Menagerie almost caused him to stagnate.  His final words encourage readers to live....while they still have time to do it.

Original Cast List, Signet edition

I Am My Own Wife by Doug Wright (2004)

Summary:  Doug Wright's Introduction explains that the play is "a one-woman show, performed by a man" (xix).  Charlotte von Mahlsdorf is an East Berlin transvestite who has managed to survive both the Nazis and the Communists and lives to tell about it as she guides audiences through her home--which is a sort of collector's museum.  One actor plays thirty-six characters (including the playwright) in a style reminiscent of the ethnographic performances of Anna Deavere-Smith.

Thoughts:  This play is unlike anything else on the list of plays that have been awarded the Pulitzer Prize.  Currently, it is the only one-person show on the list and it is one of the only plays that is decidedly not about American Life (which the guidelines suggest/mandate).  The other plays that I have encountered thus far that are not about "American Life" are Ruined and The Diary of Anne Frank.  An argument could be made that all three of these plays deal with issues/people that America should have cared about, but instead turned a blind eye to (genocide in the Congo, Holocaust, Communist persecution). 

One of the most compelling parts of Wright's text is the Introduction where he details the practical and emotional experience of writing this play.  He collected hundreds of hours of interviews and then was at a loss about how to put them all together.  Eventually, his colleague Robert Blacker suggested, "Whatever you do, don't write a play about history.  Write a play about your love affair with Charlotte von Mahlsdorf.  If you're lucky, the requisite history will take care of itself."   Wright replies, "It was the most liberating gift a fellow artist could give; permission to write my own story.  For the first time, the play's structure dawned on me.  It wouldn't be a straight-forward biographical drama; it would chart my own relationship with my heroine" (xv).

Wright does an excellent job of showcasing Charlotte while using the other characters to propel the narrative; but, at times, it seems that the other characters are present for the sole purpose of providing dramatic structure.  This play is moving and important, but much of it's critical acclaim should be credited to Jefferson Mays--the actor who won a Tony Award for bringing Wright's complicated text (and the complicated character of Charlotte) to life onstage.

Inscribed copy of I Am My Own Wife.  Gift from Jessica Watkins (who worked with Doug Wright at the La Jolla Playhouse, 2009). 

Three Tall Women by Edward Albee (1994)

Summary: Three actresses play a character (not named) at different points in her life—around late 80s, 52 and 26. The actress playing the 26 year-old version is often dismissive of the advice given by older versions of herself. As such, they are both hyper-critical towards this young version of themselves. The oldest incarnation of this character is literally on her deathbed during the second act and repeatedly speaks in vague terms about an estranged son possibly coming to visit her. He does eventually visit, but never speaks.

Thoughts: In his Introduction, Albee explains, “I did not want to write a revenge piece.” However, he also makes it very clear that this play is about his adoptive mother, with whom he had a very troubled relationship (“I did not like her much, could not abide her prejudices, her loathings, her paranoias.”) With this set up, Albee creates three separate characters (though they are actually the same person), each deeply flawed. At times when they are delivering their major monologues, they paint themselves as completely unlikeable—only to later be redeemed by a different version of themselves.

Because of his extraordinarily personal introduction (he never claims that the play is not autobiographical) parts of this play made me feel like I know much more about Edward Albee than I actually do. One of the most heightened moments happens when the mother character graphically describes having adulterous sex in a barn with a stable hand, then stating that her son confronted her about it. As retaliation, she reflects on the incendiary comments made about his homosexuality that caused his abrupt premature departure from home.

"People often ask me how long it takes me to write a play, and I tell them 'all of my life.'"
-Edward Albee in the Introduction to Three Tall Women