The Magic Tower and Other One-Act Plays Read online

  GLORIA [hoarsely]: What did he say about them?

  MOTHER: He said the lung-tissues can heal if you give them a chance.

  GLORIA: I’m restless, I have to go out. I can’t stay in all the time.

  MOTHER: Your energy’s feverish, Bessie. You feel like doing more than you’re fit for.

  [Gloria sinks upon sofa beside her mother. She sits very rigidly. Neither looks at the other. There are several inches of space between them.]

  GLORIA: I can’t just sit here and wait for something to happen. Polish my nails and curl my hair and wait for Christ’s Second Coming! Is that what you and the doctor would recommend for me?

  MOTHER: No, Bessie.

  GLORIA: I’m glad of that!

  MOTHER Vernon is—

  GLORIA: Yes! Vernon is! And that’s absolutely all!

  MOTHER: I believe he would still marry you if you came to your senses.

  GLORIA: Vernon does not represent the future I plan for myself.

  MOTHER: I remember you said the same thing ten years ago.

  GLORIA: Well, it’s still true.

  MOTHER: There’s quite a difference between the future and the past.

  GLORIA: I know that.

  MOTHER: The past keeps getting bigger and bigger at the future’s expense! [Pause.]

  GLORIA [with a desperate effort to shake off despair]: We drove into Meridian and bought a copy of Billboard. It has my ad in it. [Rises quickly and snatches up magazine.] Look here, listen to this! [Reads aloud in a high, excited voice. Trembling and drunkenly, she crouches toward the table lamp for better light.] “At Liberty.” [She pauses to cough.]

  MOTHER [ironically]: Yes—At liberty!

  GLORIA [going on breathlessly]: “Leads, ingenues—27, blond, attractive—”

  MOTHER: Huh!

  GLORIA: “5 ft. 2, 114 lbs., singing, dancing, specialties—” [The mother makes a stiff, fretful gesture. Gloria reads with rising excitement, panting breathlessly.] “Quick study, versatile—Excellent wardrobe—Write! Wire! —Gloria La Greene—Blue Mountain—” [Here suddenly the enthusiasm dies out and she looks at her mother with a frightened expression.] Blue—Mountain—Mississippi. . . . [Coughs.] How do you like it?

  MOTHER [grimly]: It’s full of misrepresentations.

  GLORIA: Oh, it is not!

  MOTHER: It is! Can’t you even distinguish between a truth and a lie? You’re not twenty-seven, Bessie, you’re thirty-two.

  GLORIA: I don’t look it.

  MOTHER: You do!

  GLORIA: Nobody says I do.

  MOTHER: Why should they? —Shout it across the street at you?

  GLORIA: You want to destroy my confidence! Make me feel utterly hopeless. [Sobbing a little.] I’ve had bad times, no breaks, like everyone else in show business. But I’m not—through! —Do you think? [The mother stares at her implacably. Then Gloria continues, slowly.] Oh—So you think I am? [Her voice rises almost to a scream.] You sit on that old threadbare sofa, night after night, waiting there for me, like Mrs. Doomsday in person! Honest to God, your eyes, they’re like a tape measure, taking my size for a coffin! But I’ll—I’ll cheat you out of it, though!

  MOTHER: Bessie!

  GLORIA: Don’t Bessie me! [She coughs and shudders.]

  MOTHER: You’re drunk and you’re sick, your face is burning with fever! Look at your dress, how it’s torn!

  GLORIA: What if it is? I don’t care. [Pause. She turns to the mirror.] Where is it torn?

  MOTHER: The seam is ripped out at the waist.

  GLORIA: That can be mended.

  MOTHER: Yes, but other things can’t.

  GLORIA: Everything can be mended, it’s only a matter of time.

  MOTHER: Ah! Such sublime optimism.

  GLORIA: Sure. When people are starving, they take optimism and stuff it into their stomachs. Like water, like grass! It gives the illusion of having had a big dinner. [Lifts her head stubbornly.] I’m not discouraged. I never will be discouraged. Driving home in the rain, I thought to myself—

  MOTHER: That tomorrow you’d be laid up!

  GLORIA: No!

  MOTHER: What did you think?

  GLORIA: That tomorrow I’d be— [She suddenly smiles.] Cast for a marvelous part in a Broadway production! You see, I’m an artist, Mother! I want to cry out, don’t stifle the passion in me!

  MOTHER: What kind of expression is that?

  GLORIA: A cry from the soul! [She turns to the window abruptly and pulls it open. Pause.] The weather-bird says—the rain will continue forever.

  MOTHER: Put down that window.

  GLORIA: No.

  MOTHER: You’re exposing your chest.

  GLORIA: To think I was born in this place, Blue Mountain, Mississippi. How do they get the mountain? It’s as flat as a board! But Christ in Chicago, they certainly picked the right color!

  MOTHER [throws her cape over Gloria’s shoulders]: There’s actually one other light still burning. Upstairs at the Bassetts’. Mrs. Bassett is dying.

  GLORIA: I might have known it. —Death is the only thing they’d leave the lights on for, in this fabulous city. There was only one boy here that I ever liked and that was Red Allison, Mother.

  MOTHER: Fell off the back of a freight car and lost both his legs. [Pause.]

  GLORIA: Better than what I lost.

  MOTHER: Yes? What did you lose?

  GLORIA: Wings on my dancing shoes.

  MOTHER: You’re talking absurdly, Bessie.

  GLORIA: I lost ’em not all at once, but gradually. They melted away in the sun like that Greek boy’s who wanted to fly so badly. Or maybe it was the rains they melted in. I don’t remember.

  MOTHER: You’re running a temperature.

  GLORIA: Red and I had a club composed of two members, him an’ me. We invented the rebel yell. Yes, and a constitution! The first rule in it was never to stop moving forward. Poor Red! He’s broken the rule.

  MOTHER: I wouldn’t be joking about it, a thing like that. A wild, irresponsible boy, but the end that he came to was tragic!

  GLORIA: We used to swim jaybird together at Sikeston’s Creek.

  MOTHER: Did you indeed!

  GLORIA: Oh, nothing was wrong about it, we were just kids. I went to Cheyenne when I heard. He was already dead. I got there ten minutes too late, they’d pulled the sheet over his head. It’s wasn’t quite long enough, though. His hair stuck out, as loud as the Fourth of July! It was sort of—impertinent looking! Congratulations, I said, you don’t need legs any longer.

  MOTHER: Who did you say that to?

  GLORIA: Nobody. Myself. [Gets up tiredly.] I practiced my dance routine this morning at the Elk’s Social Hall. My wind’s kind of bad but otherwise I’m okay.

  MOTHER: You can’t expect a complete return to health, Bessie.

  GLORIA: Can’t I?

  MOTHER: No, you’ve had hemorrhage, Bessie. The tissues can heal but . . .

  GLORIA [wildly]: STOP IT! [In her cry there is all the tortured passion for life that a human heart can contain.] Stop it, Mother! [Pause.] There’s only one lie contained in this advertisement. At liberty—that’s the lie! —I am not at liberty, Mother, I’m caught in a trap!

  MOTHER [closing her eyes]: So am I.

  GLORIA: Oh, but I’m not discouraged! —No, it’s just that I haven’t had such good luck to brag about lately . . . [She turns and exits the door, left. The mother stiffly waiting. After a moment, a burst of hysterical sobbing is heard through the door. The mother leans over slowly and turns down the lamp.]

  MOTHER: Yes—And neither have I.

  CURTAIN OR BLACKOUT

  THE MAGIC TOWER

  The Magic Tower premiered on March 23, 2011 at the Southern Rep Theatre, New Orleans, as part of the Tennessee Williams/New Orleans Literary Festival’s centennial tribute to Williams. It was directed by Aimée Hayes; the set design was by Ashley Sehorn; the costume design was by Laura Sirkin-Brown; the sound design was by Mike Harkins; the props were designed by Sarah Zoghbi; and the
lighting design was by Joan Long. The cast, in order of appearance, was as follows:

  LINDA, an ex-vaudeville actress Lara Grice

  JIM, a young artist Alex LeMonier

  MRS. O’FALLON, an Irish landlady Cecile Monteyne

  MOLLY, the landlady’s daughter Sarah Faust

  BABE, a chorus girl Cecile Monteyne

  MITCH, a vaudeville hoofer Chris Marroy

  Time: a rainy Sunday evening in late winter. Scene: a garret converted into the living quarters of an unsuccessful young artist and his wife. It is a single room, evidently used for all domestic purposes as well as the artist’s work. There is a large bay window in the center of the back wall. The door is to the left. In the right hand corner is a table bearing a washtub and an electric grill, partly concealed by an ornamental screen. In front of the screen (or any other convenient position) is a studio couch with a bright assortment of pillows. About the walls are colorful batiks and watercolors. Facing the bay window is an easel over which is hung an artist’s smock, hat and cane. The room has an ingenious, very inexpensive charm.

  As the curtain rises Linda is discovered at the ironing board, front center. She is moving the iron slowly up and down in one spot, her eyes fastened broodingly on Jim. Jim is reading a magazine.

  Linda is more mature than Jim. She is still young and fresh but in voice and movement she has an air of quiet wisdom. Her rather cryptic smile is suggestive of emotional reserves and undiscovered depths of experience. There is something of the Mona Lisa about her.

  Jim is still a bit adolescent. He is highly intelligent, even brilliant, but hasn’t outgrown the impulsive naïveté of less experienced youth.

  As the play begins a thin curl of smoke is seen rising from Linda’s iron.

  JIM [dropping the magazine and sniffing]: Do I smell something burning?

  LINDA [with a startled gesture]: Oh! I’m afraid you do. It’s your shirt.

  JIM [jumping up]: My white shirt? My only white shirt? Linda, how could you?

  LINDA: It was very simple, Jim. I was just looking at you and I completely forgot what I was doing.

  JIM: Simple is right! Did it burn very much?

  LINDA: Just the tail of it, darling!

  JIM: Thank heavens for that! Hmmm. Maybe I’d better get out of the room when you’re ironing my shirts.

  LINDA: Please don’t! I don’t want you to!

  JIM: Why not?

  LINDA: I like so much having you here.

  JIM [naïvely flattered]: Do you really?

  LINDA [impulsively hugging him]: Of course I do, my lord and master! I feel so warm and snug and protected when you are in this little room with me! [She goes over to the bureau and places his shirt in a drawer.] It is just as though I were locked up in the top room of a tower with the stairs so long and steep that nobody but you could ever come near me again.

  JIM: What a poetic idea that is! I think I’ll have to paint a picture of you, Linda, in your magic tower . . .

  LINDA [smiling with sudden pleasure]: In OUR magic tower!

  JIM: Yes, and with your long black hair flowing out of the window like Mélisande’s. . . .

  LINDA: Oh, no. Not out of the window. I never look out of the window if I can help it. It’s all so hopelessly ugly out there, those awful billboards and filling stations and delicatessens! I like to think of our—our magic tower—as being surrounded by wonderful green forests. . . .

  JIM: Yes, that’s it. Green forests! Forests of pine trees!

  LINDA: Yes, and lovely clear blue lakes!

  JIM [suddenly laughing as the vision explodes]: With crocodiles to eat the bill collectors up!

  LINDA: Oh, yes! And a dragon to breathe fire in Mrs. O’Fallon’s face every time she comes up for the rent! Oh, no! There wouldn’t be any rent or any bill collectors or Mrs. O’Fallons, would there? That’s the marvelous thing about living in a magic tower, Jim. There’s only two people. The knight and the lady!

  JIM: The enchanted prince and princess!

  LINDA: And they’re always together. She won’t let him leave her.

  JIM: Can’t he even go hunting for supper?

  LINDA: No, he can’t leave her a single moment because when he’s gone the magic tower starts to crumble. If he stays away very long it falls to pieces and turns to a desert island. . . . So even if she moons over him so much that she burns the tail of his only white shirt he has to forgive her and stay right here in the magic tower looking perfectly happy about it!

  JIM [laughing and returning to the couch with his magazine]: Poor old Linda! It’s all just make-believe, isn’t it?

  LINDA: Make-believe? Of course it isn’t! It’s absolutely real.

  JIM: You can’t tell me you don’t find this life pretty dull after the excitement of the show business. Moving around from place to place all the time. . . .

  LINDA: What makes you think I found moving around from place to place exciting?

  JIM: Didn’t you? I should think you’d have found it terribly exciting!

  LINDA: Terribly is right. Just like being tied to the tail of a runaway horse.

  JIM: Hmmm. I’d have liked it. Do you know, I’ve never been outside this city. I’ve grown up in the middle of it. All this ugliness. Mmmm. I’d give anything to have been the places you’ve been. At least you’ve got that. Memories. Things to look back on. . . .

  LINDA: Memories. Yes. I have lots of those. Some of them aren’t so swell.

  JIM: And now it’s all narrowed down to just this one little room. You must get awfully tired of it. . . .

  LINDA: If I tell you something very seriously will you promise to take my word for it?

  JIM: What?

  LINDA: In this little room I’ve been completely happy for the first and only time in my life! [She sets the iron on its end.] Pull the cord out, will you, Jim. The iron’s getting too hot.

  JIM [obeying this direction]: Hmmm. You really mean that, Linda?

  LINDA: Of course I mean it. I’m completely happy here.

  JIM [stretching out on the couch]: Why?

  LINDA: I don’t know.

  JIM: It isn’t a very handsome room.

  LINDA: No.

  JIM: The wallpaper is atrocious.

  LINDA: Yes.

  JIM: Nothing very grand about the furnishings.

  LINDA: No.

  JIM: Too hot in summer. Too cold in winter. The roof leaks in—[counting wet spots on floor] —one, two, three places!

  LINDA: Yes.

  JIM [filling his pipe]: What is it then?

  LINDA [smiling to herself]: I think you know.

  JIM: Something very supernatural I suppose.

  LINDA: No. Something very natural. [She places more ironed pieces in bureau drawers.]

  JIM [laughing]: Well, I give up.

  LINDA: I’m surprised at your stupidity. What else could make me completely happy but just—our being here together like this. You and I. A few feet of space between us, that’s all!

  JIM: So that’s why you’re happy!

  LINDA: Yes. That’s why I’m happy. So you see it wasn’t just make-believe about the magic tower. When two people make their own world there is something rather magical about it, don’t you think?

  JIM: And did you mean it about the tower falling to pieces when I go out?

  LINDA: Yes, I meant that, too. When you go out—when you just go out of this room for a moment—something happens.

  JIM [laughing]: The spell is broken!

  LINDA: Yes. The spell is broken. I begin to look around me and I say to myself, “What atrocious wall paper! How damp the air is! If the roof continues to leak at this rate I shall have to learn how to swim before dark!”

  JIM: And what the devil are we going to have for supper tonight!

  LINDA: Oh, yes. That is the most immediate problem. What do we eat and when?

  JIM: I know. Mrs. O’ Fallon had chicken for dinner. I’m going to raid the Frigidaire right now. [He gets up and runs a comb through his hair.]

/>   LINDA: And leave me up here by myself? I might drown before you get back. No. I’m going with you.

  JIM: I’ll say you aren’t! If Mrs. O’Fallon caught you in her Frigidaire it would be grand larceny.

  LINDA [sadly]: I know. She doesn’t approve of me. She thinks I married you for your family fortune. [She gives him a shove toward door.] Go on. Swipe a drumstick for me! [When Jim goes out Linda’s happy manner vanishes. She shrugs her shoulders as though trying to dismiss some oppressive thought. Goes over to the window. Then, disgustedly.] Rain . . . all the time! [She places washbowl under one of the leaking places. Footsteps are heard and rapping at the door.]

  MRS. O’FALLON [offstage]: Mrs. Flynn?

  [Mrs. O’Fallon enters. She is an Irish landlady in an acid humor.]

  LINDA [anxiously]: Oh, Mrs. O’Fallon! How charming of you to come up! Just when I was feeling so lonesome. . . .

  MRS. O’FALLON: Hmmm. No doubt. Hmmm. I see yer doin’ yer wash up here.

  LINDA [brightly]: Oh, yes. I’m quite domestic these days. . . .

  MRS. O’FALLON: Well, it ain’t allowed. It’s against the rules o’ the establishment, Mrs. Flynn. Roomers ain’t allowed to do their wash in the rooms!

  LINDA [desperately]: But Mrs. O’Fallon—Jim and I—we have to save every way that we can. . . .

  MRS. O’FALLON: Hmmm. No doubt. I should think yer would. Yer five weeks behind on yer rent right now. I’ve turned out many a roomer in the dead o’ winter fer bein’ less than that, Mrs. Flynn! This ain’t no charitable institution. . . .

  LINDA: I know, I know! I was just saying to Jim this morning—“Dear Mrs. O’Fallon, she’s been so patient with us. . . .”

  MRS. O’FALLON [acidly]: It’s yer husband that I’ve been patient with, Mrs. Flynn. I always have a great deal o’ sympathy fer young men like Jim who don’t know properly how to take care o’ themselves. . . .

  LINDA: I know. Jim has told me how lovely you were to him, Mrs. O’Fallon. Just like a mother, he said!

  MRS. O’FALLON: Just like a mother, is it? Well, I like that! I’m hardly as old as all that, Mrs. Flynn!