30 PLAYS IN 30 DAYS: BONUS PLAY "This Property is Condemned" by Tennessee Williams

 

I have given myself the challenge of reading 30 plays for the 30 days of September and to write about them here on my blog. Today, after reading the Summer and Smoke, I was so taken with the Prologue featuring the Young John and Young Alma, that I went back and read Tennessee Williams' short play, This Property is Condemned. And while I will not consider it one of my 30 plays for the 30 days of September (it's probably a 15-minute read, tops, probably closer to 10), I will still discuss it here briefly. 

While Tennessee Williams is primarily known for his full-length works that made him one of the most important American playwrights of the 20th century, (particularly A Streetcar Named Desire and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,  both winners of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama), I have always been fond of a number of his short plays for their ability to pack some serious emotional weight while being short and precise. I think This Property is Condemned is maybe the best example of this gift. 

The two-character play begins with Tom, about 12 or 13, out with his kite, and a young woman of 13 named Willie is walking down the railroad tracks with a ragged doll in one hand and sorry looking banana in the other. Willie is dressed in clothes that are too old for her, and has childishly rubbed rouge on her face. She asks Willie to hold her doll and and not talk to her until she falls off the tracks--- which she does after a few more moments. 

As the two kids talk, it is clear that Willie is not in the best of circumstances. Since her older sister Alva's death, her life has crumbled. Her sister was promiscuous with the railroad men, or so it was said. Willie's mother ran off with a man from the railroad, and her father took to drinking and disappeared. She lives alone in their house now, which has a sign on it reading: THIS PROPERTY IS CONDEMNED. She is alone, though she says she has inherited her sister's clothes and her beaux. Tom has even heard that Willie danced for one of his friends, which Willie doesn't deny. She merely said she was lonesome at the time. 

Willie is a heartbreaking character, and the short play is a perfect portrait and duet for two talented young performers. I am happy tat Williams doesn't answer every question about Willie's life, and that we don't know exactly when she is lying and when she is telling the truth. It is a fascinating short piece. 

A full-length movie was made in 1966 that expands the story and dramatizes Willie's stories about her older sister Alva. And while I have heard good things about the film, I think I prefer the short, ambiguous, yet emotional piece written for the stage. I don't think we need to see Alva's story. It's about how Alva's story brought Willie to where she is now--- that's the engaging part of it for me. 

I hope you enjoyed this bonus discussion for This Property is Condemned. Please feel free to keep on coming back to my blog.  And if you're interested in a cool new Christmas Play, you can learn about my play A Wicked Christmas Carol that combines the worlds of Dickens and of L. Frank Baum's Oz books by CLICKING HERE. 

30 PLAYS IN 30 DAYS: Play #26 "Summer and Smoke" by Tennessee Williams

 

I have decided for the month of September to read 30 plays in 30 days. It is my belief that, if possible, a play should be read in one sitting to get a better inherent sense of the dramatic arc. Each day, I will write a short post here about the play of the day.

Play #26

Summer and Smoke by Tennessee Williams

One can't really have  discussion about 20th century American theater without mentioning Tennessee Williams (born Thomas Lanier Williams III). Along with biggies like Eugene O'Neill, he is considered to be one of the most important dramatists of the era--- his play A Streetcar Named Desire is considered as seminal an American work as O'Neill's Long Day's Journey Into Night and Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman. His first major success came with The Glass Menagerie when he was just 33, and the prolific, lyrical playwright followed it up with a string of hits, including winning the Pulitzer Prize for Drama twice, once for the aforementioned Streetcar and again for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. 

Summer and Smoke opened in 1948, his first follow-up to Streetcar, though he had been working on it since 1945 under the title Chart of Anatomy (such a chart is pivotal in the play). The play is sort of a love story (or maybe, more appropriately, a love story that doesn't really happen) between Alma, the minister's daughter, and John, following in his father's footsteps by becoming a doctor. Alma, her name meaning "soul", believes in the spirit within a person, while John is more interested in the flesh. The play is told in two parts--- Summer and Winter--- and in many ways is a philosophical argument between these two ways of looking at humans (argument being the word the characters use). Alma loves John, believes he could ascend to be above what he is in the first part, that is, a drunkard who goes after pleasure where he can find it. By the end, however, Alma and John have reversed, or so we are led to think--- she has "won the argument" according to John, who now believes in the soul, and Alma is no longer sure of such things... only sure that she loves him and can't be with him. Now, I say that John has supposedly changed, though, by the end, he is with a woman who he admits is still "just a child", who we first met as a 16 year-old student with a school girl crush on him.  So... yeah. 

While Tennessee Williams is always a pleasure to read--- he is such a gifted writer and spins an interesting tale that you want to see reconciled--- this play is not his best. Alma really is little more than a symbol for the spirit, and her "nervous attacks" (John gets her hooked on pills for that--- yay) and strange laughter feel more like quirks than actual character traits. John is also too much of a symbol, and, as mentioned before, I did not find his journey believable or earned. Nor did what keeps them apart at the end seem genuine to me, either. 

I know this sounds like I didn't like the play, but that is not true at all. It really is a great read, and Williams, very specific in his stage directions, sets up a nice visual picture, and there are beautifully written monologues. 

Interestingly enough, this story must have kept kicking around in Williams' head, because he rewrote the play in 1964 with the title The Eccentricities of a Nightingale. It is said that he prefers this play to Summer and Smoke, and some of the criticisms about the character Alma are said to be rectified in Nightingale. This, of course, makes me want to find a copy of it so I can do a side-by-side compare/contrast... perhaps some day. 

One final note: the play begins with a Prologue of a young John and Alma at the fountain (which also is of importance in the play). It is a short scene, but I really like it. Williams, in my opinion, was pretty good at writing children, and I almost wish this scene had been longer. Makes me want to take another look at his excellent one-act, This Property is Condemned. 

Thanks for reading, and please feel free to check out the rest of my blog. If you're interested in my plays, you can click HERE, HERE, HERE or even HERE