One Act Plays by Tennessee Williams

Tennessee Williams wrote brief plays throughout his life exploring many themes that dominated his best-known works. Samuel French Ltd is proud to announce that it now handles for amateur performance the following thirteen never-before-published one-act dramas which reveal some of his most poignant and hilarious characters. These are tales of isolated figures struggling against a cruel world, who refuse to lose sight of their dreams.
The plays are contained in one volume: Mister Paradise and Other One-Act Plays Price £10.99 ISBN 0 141 18842 1

Adam and Eve on a Ferry
M1 F2. A sun porch. Fee code E

Here, Tennessee Williams gives a comic portrait of D.H. Lawrence as someone who functions as an analyst for repressed women. As he sits embroidering on the porch of his villa, Lawrence is visited by Miss Ariadne Peabody. Adopting a Sherlock-Holmesian intuition, Lawrence divines that spinsterish Miss Peabody met a man aboard a ferry, he propositioned her, but in her passionate excitement she forgot his name and where they were to meet. Happily, Lawrence helps Miss Peabody recover her memory.

D.H. Lawrence. Frieda Lawrence. A Visitor, Ariadne Peabody: spinsterish, nervous, diffident, American; 35.

And Tell Sad Stories of the Death of Queens
M4. A living-room. Fee code E

Candy Delaney is a successful New Orleans interior decorator and landlord who is also a drag queen approaching “her” 35th birthday. On the rebound from a seventeen-year relationship, Candy has picked up a rough, vicious sailor, Karl, on whom she lavishes money. On the day of the dreaded birthday, Karl walks out and it’s left to the two queens who live upstairs, Alvin and Jerry, to comfort Candy.

Candy Delaney: slim, graceful, a natural effeminacy; 35. Karl: big, merchant seaman; young. Alvin Krenning. Jerry Johnson: handsome queen with pinched look, humorous lisp; 20s.

The Big Game
M6 F2. A small hospital ward. Fee code E

Tony, a vigorous young footballer, is about to be discharged from the men’s ward. In contrast, the other two occupants are a terminally ill youth, Dave, and Walton, a middle-aged patient about to undergo surgery for a brain tumour. When Tony leaves, Walton introduces Dave to the concept of eternity by looking at the stars. Walton dies during the operation and the play ends with Dave, alone, contemplating the stars.

Tony Elson: college football star; 20. Dave: a charity case; 20. Walton: patient; 49. Joe: hospital orderly, hearty manner. Miss Albers: nurse, tall, blonde; young. Fussy: nickname for Miss Stuart, the head nurse, bespectacled, sharp featured. Dr North: staff doctor; young. Dr Hynes: Dave’s physician.

Escape
M3. A chain-gang bunk-house. Fee code E

Three prisoners in a bunk-house play cards and listen while their cellmate makes a run to the railtracks with guards and dogs in hot pursuit. Finally, they hear gunshots but when they see the guards return with a body they believe Billy’s free at last.

Big. Steve. Texas.

The Fat Man’s Wife
M2 F1. A pink bedroom. Fee code E

It’s New Year’s morning 1938. Vera and her husband Joe, an influential theatre producer, are returning from a party, at which a young playwright, Dennis Merriwether, has paid great court to Vera. Rather than compromise his art, Dennis has decided to quit New York for Acapulco and wants Vera to accompany him. But Vera sends him away; she is, after all, the fat man’s wife.

Joe Cartwright: fat, irrepressible; middle age. Vera Cartwright: youthful grace; verging on middle age. Dennis Merriwether: playwright; young.

Mister Paradise
M1 F1. A room. Fee code E

A wealthy, eager college girl makes a surprise visit to the eponymous Mister Paradise in his squalid New Orleans surroundings. Having discovered a book of his poetry written 15 years earlier, she is determined to make him famous. Horrified, he explains that “Gabriel has not yet blown the horn” and that Anthony Paradise, his pen-name, will only be famous when Jonathan Jones is dead. They part, he telling her to watch the obituaries, she promising that his future is safe in her hands.

The Girl: young. Mister Paradise: elderly.

The Municipal Abattoir
M2 F1. A pavement. Fee code E

In a Spanish-speaking dictatorship, a clerk, who has been condemned to death, asks a student the way to the Municipal Abattoir. The student tells him to save himself but the clerk says he can’t because he’s been a Municipal Employee too long to disobey. The student changes tack and orders the clerk to take his gun and shoot the general as his motorcade passes by. But the clerk is too cowed and finally asks the audience the way to the abattoir.

Boy: university student. Girl: university student. Clerk: middle age.

The Palooka
M4 (or may be played by M2 with 2 off-stage male voices). A boxing arena dressing-room. Fee code E

The Palooka is a spent boxer. Next to him on the bench awaiting his first professional fight is a starry-eyed youngster who hopes to make it big like his hero, former champion Galveston Joe. The Kid supposes that Joe retired wealthy and glorious, and the Palooka wistfully agrees. But as the Palooka walks out lifelessly to get slaughtered again, the Trainer gives the brutal truth: old timers in the crowd still recognize the has-been — despite changing his name from Galveston Joe ...

Palooka: grim, cynical, worn-out; 38. Another Old Boxer: may be played as an off-stage voice. The Trainer: may be played as an off-stage voice. The Kid: eager, tense; young.

The Pink Bedroom
M1 F1. 1M. A pink bedroom. Fee code E

The Woman berates her tedious, negligent lover whom she knows has two-timed her. As the quarrel reaches a crescendo, she turns him out and slams the door on him. Then she calls to his replacement, a younger man, who’s waiting in the other room ...

Man: middle age. Woman: pretty, blonde; 30. Younger Man: non-speaking.

Summer at the Lake
M1 F2. A living-room. Fee code E

Donald desperately seeks refuge from his hectoring mother who perpetually nags him on topics that seem alternately trivial and all too painfully pertinent to his future. At every available opportunity he flees to the lake where he swims alone. Finally, he doesn’t return.

Donald Fenway: thin, sensitive; 17. Mrs Fenway: fretful; middle age. Anna: servant; elderly.

Thank You, Kind Spirit
M4 F7. 1 girl. Extras. A spiritualist chapel. Fee code E

Mother Duclos is a spiritualist dispensing succour, on payment of a fee, to the troubled people who come to her chapel. But a woman incites everyone to turn against her, and they strip the chapel of its religious artefacts. Desolate, Mother Duclos is comforted finally by the crippled little girl who returns to say that she still believes.

Mother Duclos: small, grizzled, hunchbacked, octoroon, Creole accent. Youth: 17. Woman in Rear. First Young Woman. Second Young Woman. Middle-aged Woman. Young Man. Little Girl: 8. Father Bordelon: a priest. Mr Regis Vicarro: storekeeper. Mrs Duvenet. Mrs Veninga. Others in attendance.

These Are the Stairs You Got to Watch
M5 F3. 2M optional extras. A cinema foyer. Fee code E

Carl, veteran usher at the third-rate Joy Rio Cinema, is showing the ropes to a schoolboy, newly hired to work in the summer holidays. The boy is introduced to the sleazy workings of the cinema by being instructed not to let patrons go upstairs. However, the patrons are hell-bent on going upstairs, including the seductive Gladys who’s determined to get the boy to follow her.

Carl: cinema usher; 30. Boy: fair-haired, shy, nervous, naïve; 16. Gladys: dark-haired; young. Man: older patron. Girl: Gladys’ friend; young. Mr Kroger: cinema manager, corpulent, decayed. Cashier: small, skinny, excitable; 50.

Why Do You Smoke So Much, Lily?
F2. A voice. A fashionable apartment. Fee code E

Mrs Yorke struts and preens herself in the mirror of her fashionable apartment while daughter, Lily, does nothing but chain-smoke and make cynical comments. Driven to near insanity by her overbearing mother, Lily can hear her mother’s fretful, incessant voice even when she’s not there. Her entrapment is total; there is no escape.

Mrs Yorke: stout, widow of social pretensions; middle age. Lily: angular, dark, sallow, frustrated, intellectual; young. A Voice.

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