by John Lahr
232 “It seems to me”: Elia Kazan to Williams, ca. 1954–1955, as quoted in Elia Kazan, An American Odyssey, ed. Michel Ciment (London: Bloomsbury, 1988), p. 190.
233 “a sort of penumbra”: Williams to Oliver Evans, Mar. 5, 1951, L2, p. 371.
233 “summer of wanderings”: Williams to Audrey Wood, Aug. 23, 1951, ibid., p. 395.
233 “Yesterday was the first time in our lives”: N, July 25, 1951, pp. 521–23.
233 “makes the foulest coffee”: Williams to Konrad Hopkins, Dec. 22, 1952, LLC.
235 “He is not at all keen”: N, July 25, 1951, p. 523.
235 “the summer of the long knives”: Ibid., 1951, p. 532.
235 “I had been quite witless”: Williams to Elia Kazan, 1951, LLC.
235 “About one hundred miles out of Rome”: Williams to Audrey Wood, July 22, 1951, L2, pp. 390–91.
236 “almost panicky with depression”: N, July 22, 1951, p. 521.
236 “be sweet to acquaintances”: Ibid., July 30, 1951, p. 527.
236 “term in Purgatory”: Ibid., July 29, 1951, p. 527.
236 “Southern Drinkers”: The title of the first section of the original story.
236 “great vigor and promise”: Tennessee Williams, “Three against Grenada,” HRC.
236 published fifteen months later: Tennessee Williams, “Three Players of a Summer Game,” The New Yorker, Nov. 1, 1952.
236 “No one noticed Mr. Brick Bishop”: Williams, “Three against Grenada,” HRC.
236 “The crustacean world for a while!”: N, July 31, 1951, p. 529.
236 “drawing the sails of my heart”: Ibid., July 25, 1951, p. 523.
236 “Just taken: 2 phenobarbs”: Ibid., Aug. 29, 1951, p. 533.
236 “had not yet completely fallen”: CS, “Three Players of a Summer Game,” p. 305.
237 “I am telling you mostly what I saw”: Williams, “Three against Grenada,” HRC.
237 “couldn’t get going”: Williams to Brooks Atkinson, May 1952, L2, p. 425.
237 “working, working, working”: Williams to Audrey Wood, Sept. 28, 1951, ibid., p. 403. Brick is symbolically hobbled after he sprains his ankle while drunkenly running the hurdles on the track.
237 “all the warmth and charm”: N, Aug. 4, 1951, p. 529.
237 “I think the reason the Horse”: Williams to Maria Britneva, Aug. 3, 1951, FOA, p. 44.
237 “amitié amoureuse”: Ibid., p. 7.
238 “Thank God for Maria”: N, Oct. 1, 1951, p. 539.
238 “good kind of mischief”: Williams to Carson McCullers, June 18, 1949, L2, p. 256.
238 Hermione Baddeley: Britneva had introduced Williams to Baddeley as a possible Serafina in the English production of The Rose Tattoo; in 1962, she starred as Mrs. Goforth in The Milk Train Doesn’t Stop Here Anymore.
238 “attractive in a wild sharp-toothed way”: Entry dated Nov. 25, 1972, in Kenneth Tynan, The Diaries of Kenneth Tynan, ed. John Lahr (New York: Bloomsbury, 2001), p. 110.
238 “We entered a small living-room”: Ibid., pp. 111–12.
240 “The queen spat in Maria’s face”: Williams to Frank Merlo, Aug. 29, 1951, L2, p. 401.
240 “the cool air of detachment”: LOA1, p. 885.
240 “At times in life”: N, Sept. 11, 1951, p. 537.
240 “I like being with Frank”: N, Sept. 16, 1951, p. 537.
240 “The Horse is in bed”: Williams to Maria Britneva, Sept. 18, 1951, FOA, p. 46.
240 “sexy, original and lively”: Elia Kazan, undated, BRTC.
240 two scenes of which Kazan had workshopped: Kazan directed blocks 6 and 7.
241 “The prospect of another Kazan production”: Williams to Elia Kazan, Oct. 8, 1951, WUCA.
241 “Do you think”: Williams to Audrey Wood, Sept. 28, 1951, L2, pp. 403–4.
241 “It was a mysterious harmony”: KAL, p. 334.
241 “I always had fun working with Kazan”: M, p. 166.
241 “Some day you will know how much”: Williams to Elia Kazan, 1959, KOD, p. ix.
241 “Life in America”: KAL, p. 336.
241 “I come from a family of voyagers”: KAL, pp. 190–91.
242 “We both felt vulnerable”: Ibid., p. 495.
242 “disappearer”: Ibid., p. 335.
242 “The one thing any ambitious outsider”: Ibid., p. 71.
242 “The terror in the house lifted”: Ibid., p. 10.
242 “was a man full of violence”: Ibid., p. 357.
242 “good for nothing”: Ibid., p. 25.
242 “hopeless case”: Ibid., p. 317.
242 “We entered a secret life”: Ibid., p. 24.
243 “I learned to mask my desires”: Ibid., p. 29.
243 “would be opposed”: Ibid.
243 “He hit her smack across the face”: Ibid., p. 31.
243 “I knew what I was”: Ibid., p. 41.
243 “I wanted what they had”: Ibid., p. 44.
243 “ ‘Fuck you all, big and small!’ ”: Ibid., p. 138.
243 “Didn’t you look in the mirror?”: Ibid., p. 12.
243 “He didn’t have the kind”: JLI with Elizabeth Ashley, 2003, JLC.
244 “Women have always meant everything”: KAL, p. 27.
244 “strong ‘feminine’ characteristics”: Ibid.
244 “Baby, you know as well as I know”: Williams to Elia Kazan, Jan. 21, 1952, L2, p. 415.
244 “Promiscuity for an artist”: KAL, p. 178.
244 “the undisputed darling”: “If a man has been his mother’s undisputed darling,” Freud wrote, “he retains throughout life the triumphant feeling, the confidence in success, which not seldom brings actual success along with it.” (Sigmund Freud, The Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, vol. 17 (1917–1919): An Infantile Neurosis and Other Works (London: Vintage, 2001), pp. 145–46.)
244 “I wanted to be the source”: KAL, p. 562.
244 “the hushed air of conspiracy”: Arthur Miller, Timebends: A Life (London: Methuen, 1999), p. 273.
244 “grinned a lot”: Miller, Timebends, p. 132.
244 “He would send one actor”: Ibid., p. 273.
245 “He let the actors talk”: Ibid., p. 132.
245 “You are a man of action”: Williams to Elia Kazan, 1949, WUCA.
245 “I am very excited”: Williams to Audrey Wood, Oct. 27, 1951, L2, p. 405.
245 “salvation lies only in new work”: Williams to Elia Kazan, Jan. 21, 1952, ibid., p. 415.
246 “always to have had a slightly superstitious awe”: Williams to Konrad Hopkins, Feb. 24, 1954, LLC.
246 “We laugh our heads off”: Williams to Cheryl Crawford, Feb. 10, 1952, L2, p. 419.
246 “F. and Bigelow joined us”: N, Feb. 1952, p. 547.
246 “Frank has found a crowd”: Williams to Oliver Evans, Feb. 20, 1952, L2, p. 420.
246 “a gorgeous . . . Adonis”: Williams to Oliver Evans, Jan. 18, 1952, ibid., p. 413.
247 “Frankie is having himself a ball”: Williams to Cheryl Crawford, Apr. 5, 1952, ibid., p. 423.
247 “Coarse fabrics are the ones”: Tennessee Williams, “A Moment in a Room” (unpublished), LLC.
248 “must fold away”: N, p. 546.
248 “I decided to look the other way”: KAL, p. 454.
248 “We made a clean sweep”: Williams to Elia Kazan, Feb. 14, 1952, WUCA.
248 “with sufficient firmness”: KAL, p. 451.
248 “everyone seems pleased”: N, Mar. 7, 1952, p. 547.
248 “Warner’s stalled us”: Williams to Cheryl Crawford, Apr. 5, 1952, L2, p. 422.
248 “Almost immediately that put him”: Williams to Maria Britneva, Mar. 29, 1952, FOA, p. 54.
249 “Gadg, Marlon and I”: Williams to Cheryl Crawford, Apr. 5, 1953, L2, p. 422.
249 “I was afraid even to remove my flask”: Ibid.
249 “I believed my days in that town”: KAL, p. 456.
249 “desperate request”: Ibid., p. 442.
250 “He is
going through some curious phase”: Williams to Maria Britneva, Mar. 29, 1951, FOA, pp. 54–55.
250 “I say ‘we’ as if I felt”: Ibid., p. 54.
250 “She was madly in love with Tenn”: John Lahr, “The Lady and Tennessee,” The New Yorker, Dec. 19, 1994, p. 80.
250 “I do love Tennessee”: Ibid.
251 “To go around saying”: Ibid.
251 “She called me up and said”: Ibid.
251 “There was no way I could go along”: KAL, p. 449.
251 “There was a certain gloomy logic”: Miller, Timebends, pp. 333–34.
252 “. . . I joined the Communist Party”: Elia Kazan, “A Statement by Elia Kazan,” New York Times, Apr. 12, 1952.
252 “A very sad comment on our Times”: Williams to Audrey Wood, Apr. 14, 1952, L2, p. 424.
252 “I seemed to have crossed”: KAL, p. 468.
253 “He was, on the whole”: Irene Selznick, A Private View (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1983), p. 339.
253 “on a great social griddle and frying”: KAL, p. 472.
253 “a passionate absolutist”: Ibid., p. 194.
253 “Yes! You did a solid and brave thing”: Molly Day Thacher to Elia Kazan, Aug. 18, 1952, WUCA.
253 “I take no attitude”: Williams to Maria Britneva, May 27, 1952, FOA, p. 56.
253 “the most loyal and understanding friend”: KAL, p. 495.
253 “Did some top-drawer work”: Williams to Elia Kazan, Jan. 10, 1952, WUCA.
253 “treacherous”: Williams to Maria Britneva, Dec. 22, 1951, FOA, p. 51. “I must confess that Gadg and the actors did a bad job on it. It was a good play. But it was over-produced. The scenes were played too hard and heavy, so that the simple truth was lost in a lot of highly virtuoso theatricality.”
253 “There were tears and protestations”: Ibid.
254 “Now to ‘Camino’ ”: Eli Wallach to Elia Kazan, Feb. 12, 1952, WUCA.
254 “an extension of the free and plastic turn”: Williams to Audrey Wood, June 10, 1952, HRC.
254 “The Blue Guitar” or “The Guitar of Picasso”: Williams to Audrey Wood, Feb. 27, 1946, HRC.
254 “To me the appeal of this work”: LOA1, p. 743.
254 “spiritual purgation of that abyss”: NSE, p. 108.
254 “In the middle of the journey”: LOA1, p. 741.
254 “This play is possible”: Williams to Elia Kazan, July 29, 1952, L2, p. 443.
254 “galloping into totalitarianism”: Williams to Oliver Evans, Oct. 7, 1953, ibid., p. 500.
255 “the old pure music”: LOA1, p. 797.
255 “If you people”: Williams to Elia Kazan, July 29, 1952, L2, p. 442.
255 “the all-but-complete suppression”: NSE, p. 202.
255 “The spring of humanity”: LOA1, p. 751.
256 “It is they”: Kazan script for Camino Real, WUCA.
256 “The people are nearly all archetypes”: Williams to Elia Kazan, Nov. 11, 1949, WUCA.
256 “I was its unfortunate hero”: KAL, pp. 495–97.
257 “Turn again, turn again”: CP, “Carrousel Tune,” p. 60.
257 punning pronunciation of the title: Camino REal: the royal way; Camino Real: grim reality.
257 “traceable to the spirit”: Williams to Brooks Atkinson, Apr. 3, 1953, L2, p. 469.
257 “In the direction of this thing”: Kazan script for Camino Real, WUCA.
257 “I say that symbols”: LOA1, p. 745.
257 “Conventions of dreams”: Elia Kazan, “Notes on Camino Real,” WUCA.
257 “literally got down on its knees”: Williams to Brooks Atkinson, Apr. 3, 1953, L2, p. 469.
257 “The essential stylistic problem”: Kazan script for Camino Real, WUCA.
258 “This play is moving to me”: Elia Kazan to Williams, Nov. 17, 1952, HRC.
258 “My suit is pale yellow”: LOA1, p. 772.
258 “I say, if the play IS about these people”: Elia Kazan to Williams, Nov. 17, 1952, HRC. In the August 10, 1952, issue of the New York Times, in his essay “Many Writers, Few Plays,” Arthur Miller called attention to the lack of daring in the arts community. “Is the knuckle-headedness of McCarthyism behind it all?” Miller asked about the weird cultural entropy. He went on, “Guardedness, suspicion, aloof circumspection, these are the strongest traits I see around me, and what did they ever have to do with the creative act. . . . Is it quixotic to say that a time comes for an artist—and for all those who want and love theatre—when the world must be left behind. When, like some Pilgrim, he must consult only his own heart and cleave to the truth it utters?”
258 “To the hard of hearing”: Flannery O’Connor, “The Fiction Writer & His Country,” in Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose, ed. Sally and Robert Fitzgerald (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1969), p. 34.
258 “Are you afraid”: LOA1, p. 767.
258 “to put [it] away”: M, p. 165.
258 “The script is only about 1/10”: Williams to Elia Kazan, Apr. 12, 1954, WUCA.
259 “I was prepared for anything”: Williams to Audrey Wood, June 22, 1952, L2, p. 433.
259 “I am terribly stimulated”: Williams to Elia Kazan, July 29, 1952, ibid., p. 443.
259 “The Terrible Turk”: Williams to Audrey Wood, June 22, 1952, ibid., p. 433.
259 “slippery customer”: Williams to Audrey Wood, Sept. 28, 1951, ibid., p. 403.
259 “The important thing is to keep Gadg”: Williams to Audrey Wood, June 22, 1952, ibid., p. 434.
259 “very likely my last”: Williams to Elia Kazan, July 29, 1952, ibid., p. 443.
259 “We’re fighting here for fun”: Elia Kazan to Williams, undated, ca. Aug. 1952, WUCA.
260 “essentially a plastic poem”: Williams to Cheryl Crawford, Feb. 10, 1952, L2, p. 419.
260 “felt like an ungrateful dog”: Jo Mielziner to Williams, Aug. 26, 1952, HRC.
260 “hot light”: Williams to Elia Kazan, July 14, 1952, L2, p. 438.
260 “This play ends with a sort”: Ibid.
260 “I think it is remarkable”: Williams to Elia Kazan, July 29, 1952, ibid., p. 442.
261 “a retrenchment”: N, July 29, 1952, p. 555.
261 “Yesterday eve we read over the work”: Ibid., Aug. 20, 1952, p. 557.
261 “I hate writing that is a parade”: LOA1, p. 745.
261 “a chowder of archetypes”: Ethan Mordden, All That Glittered: The Golden Age of Drama on Broadway, 1919–1959 (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2007), p. 286.
261 “It’s an almost super-human job”: Williams to Maria Britneva, Feb. 11, 1953, FOA, p. 71.
261 “I am very, very disturbed”: Williams to Elia Kazan, undated, 1952, LLC.
261 As Williams suspected: Williams to Elia Kazan, Oct. 1952, L2, p. 457.
261 “the self-appointed scourge of Bohemia”: Williams to Paul Bowles, Jan. 1953, ibid., p. 460.
261 “About Tennessee”: Elia Kazan to Molly Day Thacher, undated, WUCA.
262 “When you’re sold, you just sell”: Molly Day Thacher to Elia Kazan, Sept. 24, 1952, WUCA.
262 “Molly, to all extents and purposes”: JLI with Nick Kazan, 2010, JLC.
262 “talisman of success”: KAL, p. 54.
263 “I think you can help him”: Molly Day Thacher to Elia Kazan, Aug. 22, 1952, WUCA.
263 “Never before with you”: Molly Day Thacher to Williams, Dec. 9, 1952, WUCA.
263 “She is my bete-noir!”: Williams to Maria Britneva, Dec. 19, 1952, FOA, p. 69.
263 “Catch-as-Catch-Can Kazan”: Williams to Maria Britneva, Feb. 11, 1953, ibid., p. 71.
263 “Molly is a pain”: Williams to Maria Britneva, Dec. 19, 1953, ibid., p. 69.
263 “to be accepted as their hero”: KAL, p. 498.
263 “I have fallen off remarkably”: N, Aug. 16, 1952, p. 557.
263 “It’s awful how quickly”: Williams to Carson McCullers, Aug. 1952, L2, p. 444.
264 “This play moves me”: Elia Kazan to Williams, Nov. 17, 1952, HRC.
/> 264 “God bless all con men”: LOA1, p. 839.
265 preamble: Tennessee Williams, “Invocation to Possible Angels by Author,” LLC.
265 “Where are we”: Ibid. “Just reading it does very little good as most of its values are so plastic, pictorial and dynamic, that just listening to it or reading it is almost useless unless the listener or reader has a trained theatrical mind,” Williams wrote to Maria Britneva. (Dec. 3, 1952, FOA, p. 67.)
265 “I screamed at her”: Williams to Maria Britneva, Dec. 19, 1952, FOA, p. 69.
265 “This play is at least twenty minutes”: Elia Kazan to Williams, Dec. 10, 1952, WUCA.
265 “Why stick to a conventional length?”: Elia Kazan to Williams, Dec. 10, 1952, LLC.
265 “You also exercise”: Molly Day Thacher to Williams, Dec. 9, 1952, WUCA.
266 “I’m not going to make”: Elia Kazan to Williams, Dec. 10, 1952, HRC.
266 “from A to infinity”: Elia Kazan to Williams, Dec. 2, 1952, LLC.
266 “I sat down one morning”: Ibid.
266 “Just do that”: Elia Kazan to Williams, Dec. 10, 1952, WUCA.
266 “like ladies running barefooted”: Williams to Maria Britneva, Apr. 22, 1953, FOA, p. 75.
266 tinkling of glass pendants on the Japanese lantern: Ibid.
266 “perennial work-in-progress”: Williams to Konrad Hopkins, Jan. 16, 1953, LLC.
267 “so beat!”: Ibid.
267 “Kazan is still dissatisfied”: Ibid.
267 “My dream-self betrays”: Ibid.
267 “All of us in the cast”: Eli Wallach, The Good, the Bad, and Me: In My Anecdotage (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2005), pp. 151, 153.
267 “His air is one of unusual power”: Seymour Milbert, “Stage Manager’s Rehearsal Account,” BRTC.
268 “Motto: No matter what you do”: Kazan rehearsal script for Camino Real, WUCA.
268 “This is a profound, emotionally charged play”: Milbert, “Stage Manager’s Rehearsal Account,” BRTC.
268 “Fantastic events are played simply”: Ibid.
268 “Death is too real”: Ibid.
268 “adjusted, make a living”: Kazan rehearsal script for Camino Real, WUCA.
268 “behave absurdly”: Ibid.
269 “Audience are his friends”: Kazan, “Notes on Camino Real,” WUCA.
269 “He is the eternal spiritual wanderer”: Ibid.
269 “He is full of wonder”: Kazan rehearsal script for Camino Real, WUCA.