by Dan Isaac
bram: Gone with the others?
fern: No. Luke’s gone a diff’rent way from them.
bram: If he wanted to dig out coal anyway why didn’t he stay down here where he belonged ’stead of going up to work in them damn Yankee mines!
fern [wearily]: That’s John you’re thinking of. That’s not Luke.
bram: Funny. I caint keep them straight in my head somehow. Where is Luke then?
fern: He’s down at the mines.
bram: If the boys had listened to me we’d still be workin’.
[A whistle is heard.]
fern [sharply]: What’s that, I wonder! [She goes to door.]
[Bram rises with fresh vigor like an old fire-horse at the sound of an alarm.]
bram: It’s the whistle blowing, by God! Where’s my cap and my carbon? Where did I put my powder keg last night?
fern: Bram, you’re out of your wits! Set down there and drink your coffee. You caint go out there now.
bram: I’m going. I . . . . [He goes into the other room quickly.]
fern [at the sound of singing in the street]: The strike must be over. Look! They’re all marching down the street. And they’re singing! [At door.]
bram [stumbling wildly about—back on stage]: My powder keg! My pick! I’m going to the mines.
fern: Here, Bram. Here’s your keg. [She takes it from the chest.]
bram: My pick! Where’s my pick!
fern: And here’s your pick! [Also taken from the chest.] But Bram how’ll you git to the mines? You caint see, Bram!
bram: I’m going! [He stumbles eagerly out into the road.]
fern: Wait a minute, Bram! I’d better go with you!
[She starts to loosen her apron and brush back her hair. But as the singing grows fainter her body slackens and a tired smile settles upon her face. She drops the apron to the floor and sinks into the rocker which stands in a stream of sunlight through the open door.]
fern [with the tired breathless laughter of emotional exhaustion]: I’m too tired. I’ll just set here and rest for a while. It’s all over anyhow I reckon and I’m all tuckered out . . . .
[She rocks slowly back and forth in the sunlight with a faint, tired smile on her face as . . . ]
curtain
textual notes
Four distinct versions of Candles to the Sun are known to have survived. First is the rehearsal script of Candles to the Sun used by actress Jane Garrett (now Jane Garrett Carter), who created the role of Star. A variant of that production script is part of the Tennessee Williams collection in the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center (HRHRC) at the University of Texas, Austin; it is apparently the same text retyped with one or two spelling errors corrected.
Second is a shorter version, also titled Candles to the Sun, which looks to have been professionally typed and belongs to the papers of Donald Spoto in the Special Collections at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). This neatly typed post-production text was probably prepared for the submission of Candles to a Dramatist Guild play contest. This can be identified as a distinct version because Williams did a fair amount of cutting, thereby quickening its pace.
The third complete surviving text, titled The Lamp, names Joseph Phelan Hollifield and Thomas Lanier Williams as the co-authors, and bears Williams’ explanatory note that every word of dialogue was his own comes from the HRHRC Williams Collection. I now suspect that the co-authored text which once lay just beneath this title page has disappeared, replaced by a very late version that was possibly used as a “working script” prior to, and perhaps during, the 1937 rehearsals and led directly to the production text. Neither Hollifield’s early unfinished play, nor the play promised by the co-authors listed on the title page has survived.
The fourth text, titled Place in the Sun, is likely the earliest draft and thus far only an incomplete version is known. It is also housed at the HRHRC, along with a variety of scraps and fragments related to Candles. This may well be the earliest version of “Candles” that Williams composed once he had broken away from Hollifield and stopped consulting with him. In addition to a few fragments, only the last third of Place in the Sun has survived.
The text for this first published version of Candles to the Sun comes almost entirely from a rehearsal script passed along to me by the actress Jane Garrett, who originated the role of Star. The few errors found in Williams’ spelling have been corrected silently; however all of Williams’ dialectical spellings have been left intact, whether consistent or not, so that the script is a true representation of the young playwright’s efforts.
p. 1 — Scene: In a mining camp in the Red Hill Section of Alabama
There is a Red Hills located about 30 miles north-northwest of Birmingham, in the Arkadelphia/Rickwood Caverns area (and another, much larger, Red Hills is situated about 45 miles north-northeast of Montgomery beyond Watumka). One early draft page of Candles clearly states that the Red Hills—fictive or real—are in the Birmingham area. There are still major coalfields due west of Birmingham that give a general locus for the action
p. 17 — bram: “. . . them damn Yankee mines in Pennsylvainy”
This is probably another way of referring to the target of Bram’s anger, which is the “damn anthracite mines in Pennsylvainy.” Anthracite, a cleaner burning coal, was greatly desired by cities that wished to avoid smog and noxious unhealthy fumes; the winning competitor over any bituminous coal of such fields as the one in Red Hills—despite its higher price per ton.
p. 53 — The ending of Scene Four.
This marvelous, evocative scene ending was influenced by the playwright Williams loved most, Chekhov. Williams lifted the second-act ending of The Cherry Orchard, and shaped it to his own use and purpose. In The Cherry Orchard, it is a summer night and the moon is rising. Varya seeks her younger stepsister, Anya, and the three characters involved are out-of-doors: Anya is with Trofimov, a 30-year-old schoolteacher; and as Varya keeps calling out, “Anya, Anya,” Trofimov becomes angry and says, “That Varya again. It’s revolting.”
p. 86 — star: “Don’t you ever get tired of acting like a saint around here?”
In the earlier version, Place in the Sun, “Jesus Christ” is scratched out and “a saint” handwritten below. This change may have been an effort to blunt any readiness to label Red as a “Christ figure,” or perhaps at least an allowance that an audience could come to that conclusion on its own.
Copyright © 2004 by The University of the South
Copyright © 2004 by New Directions Publishing Corporation
Foreword copyright © 2004 by William Jay Smith
Introduction and notes copyright © 2004 by Dan Isaac
“Singer of Darkness” copyright © 1936, 2002 by The University of the South, published by New Directions in The Collected Poems of Tennessee Williams.
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