Robeson: Paul Robeson (1898–1976), American actor, poet, singer, and civil rights activist. Robeson played Othello on Broadway, opposite Uta Hagen as Desdemona, in 1943 to 1944.
24. TLS—2
4/2/44 [New York]
DEAR JAY:
I hesitate to send you this, because while the story of this play is interesting to me as a dreadful crisis in my life, I am afraid it will seem like much ado about nothing—especially the way I have written it up—to other people. You must judge about that, and don’t print it if you think it will give a disgusting impression of vanity or martyrdom.
I saw poor Peggy Webster last night. I say ‘poor’ because she has just replaced Eva Le Gallienne in Cherry Orchard and is having, I think, a ghastly time with it. She has none of Le Gallienne’s delicacy and charm on the stage. In fact, she has gotten heavier, her body and movements are rather masculine, she looked almost like a Princeton Triangle ingénue, and the loose flowing garments that Le G. wore so bewitchingly appeared on her incongruously like maternity garments. You see how mean I can be? For an essentially kind person? The only justice is that the part should have been given to a deserving actress who needed it—Peggy is a director. Well, we were both a bit embarrassed as this was the first meeting since Battle. Peggy seems willing to write a preface but cannot say when. I said, knowing your printers’ dilatory habits, eventually might be soon enough. However if necessary I think she could be prodded into fairly early action. Since this crap of mine is so wordy, you may want only a short piece from her. Peggy loathes failure and her work on Battle was. What a failure! About the mag’s name—as you say, names don’t matter much.
The difficulty with Pharos is that phonetically it has antique sound of Egypt, a bit musty sounding, you know. Otherwise it is excellent. But Margaret is such a lovely name. Why not call it Margaret’s Magazine? Or Nerves? No—that’s awful! I give up. But try and find something with a green quality if you can. I am beginning to hate N.Y. again already—I spent night before last in the Federal Pen. I was picked up crossing the park after midnight and didn’t have my registration card on me. In fact I didn’t possess one. Was turned over to the FBI and incarcerated for the night. I am now with a subpoena while my cards are being sent from Clayton. The night in the Pen was fearful! But I have made some good friends at the FBI—they are really very gentlemanly. New York is sweltering with suspicion and prurience and petty malice. It is sad to see one’s friends caught here and becoming infected with it, especially when they came here as such fresh and sensitive individuals. I want to get them all out! The publicity woman for the “Academy” asked for some pictures: George Platt Lynes offered to make some free of charge. If they turn out good—he is a wonderful though somewhat chi-chi photographer—I will send you one for Margaret’s Mag [Pharos].
The Acad. ceremony is May 19th! After that I will be at liberty. I will leave here and get back to real work.
God Bless you!
Tennessee
« • »
the story of this play: “A History with Parenthesis,” his introduction to Battle of Angels.
George Platt Lynes: (1907–1955), American photographer. Lynes took publicity shots of TW (mentioned in the following letter), dressed in a costume of ragged clothes as a humorous depiction of the “starving artist.”
25. TLS—1
4/14/44 [New York]
DEAR JAY:
These proofs [FYAP (1944)] forwarded from Saint Louis where they had been intercepted by my mother and enclosed with a little disapproving note suggesting the substitution of some verses I wrote in high school.
All is correct except for the poem “Dissection.” This poem is the first draft of one I sent you later called “Cortege.” I sent you the only copy of that correction—but I have tried here to reproduce it from memory in case you don’t have the original. Did you like the first draft better? I don’t at all. It seems altogether weaker, especially in the conclusion, as it does not establish the image of the cortege as the succession of betrayals. Read this over and see if you don’t agree, that it is better.
Charles Henri called me yesterday. Said you had told him I had written you a long, enthusiastic letter about his verse! He wanted a copy of it, and said he would ask you for it. What will you do about that? Thought I should warn you as I am afraid there is really no such letter, though I made out like there was. (Over the phone.) He is completely “nigger.”
A letter from Frieda Lawrence. She expects to get rich off the first Lady Chatterley.
Once again I am tied down to You Touched Me! and the producer here wants another re-writing. But she is very intelligent—Mary Hunter—and we are doing good with it. The money is not all raised but she thinks it will be. Having a thousand bucks coming next month, I feel an Olympian indifference.—I have seen and talked to Webster about the preface and she has lately written me that she wants to know when it is expected—signifies her willingness to do it. Let me know when and I will keep after her about it. She may write something stupid, however, for her object will be defense of her failure with it mostly.
I am going to send you glossy print of photo George P. Lynes took for award publicity. He did it free so insisted on freakish poses or out-fits.
I have a dreadful cold and will be a wreck by the time I get away from New York, which is what I am living for. Oh—by the way—I want you to be my literary executor. It would be dreadful if all my papers fell into the family’s possession as they would burn the best because of impropriety. This letter authorizes you to seize all Mss. if I should kick the bucket before I could get them to you.—Not that that seems particularly imminent at the moment.
Tennessee
« • »
“nigger”: See reference to Charles Henri Ford’s “Negro charm” in letter of JL to TW of July 1944. TW considered these terms compliments to the white Ford.
Mary Hunter: American stage director and producer. Though Hunter went through many negotiations, she ultimately did not produce You Touched Me! on Broadway.
26. TLS—1
June 9, 1944 [New York]
DEAR JAY:
I have been out of touch with the world the past few weeks, on Fire Island, a narrow strip of dunes between the Atlantic and the Sound, getting in some good swimming and less interrupted work on plays. But the “season” commenced and the atmosphere of the place became even more hectic than Manhattan. So I am back here to select another retreat. I can’t go too far away this summer as money is being raised on You Touched Me! and I am supposed to stand by for maybe rehearsals in August. I wonder if it is worth it, but there is more than myself to consider. I will probably go up on the Cape, till the situation is clearer.
I didn’t know the magazine was coming out so soon. Charles Henri says the new issue of View will carry an announcement of it. Do you still want something from Webster? Personally I don’t care whether she does it or not. I can imagine the apologetic tone that she would take, but I think if Margaret, your wife, feels it would increase the attention or sales, which it very well might, the article could be obtained from her. She said she was glad to do it, provided it wasn’t expected too quickly. Now that Cherry Orchard has closed (she was playing Le Gallienne’s role) I think she might be willing to undertake it right away. Write or wire me if you want it and I will approach her again.—I was worried about my preface. I was afraid it might have an hysterical, persecuted effect. If there are any touches of that, please cut them out. I hate such things. I did once have a competent prose style, but since writing plays it has gone to seed. It is now difficult for me to write straight prose, for I am morbidly conscious of rhythm. Everything has to have a regular beat, or it seems awkward to me. How does Eliot get his wonderful, free rhythms? It is the only thing I like very much about the new Quartet, the marvelous rhythmic freedom. I have got a copy to study the sound-effects, but they are so subtle you can hardly analyze them.—I am having a few short dramatic pieces typed up for distribution and will get you a copy
. They are rather eclectic. One of them has a nice modern grotesqueness, a fiendish portrait of a fat southern matron. The general title is The Little God which I don’t like—perhaps you can suggest one better.
Yep, I got the one grand and sent it home to Mother to put in the bank. I am still living on my Hollywood savings—think they will get me through the summer, then I’ll have the award intact for flight to Mexico, if I’m not detained by “YTM”—which is written over and improved considerably. The end is much more active and lighter. All the money raised is contingent upon our ability to sign up some name stars—which is a good thing. It requires names to put it over, and damned good acting. Margo is a mad girl, but adorable—She loves you. We all do!—
Tennessee
P.S. I told Charles Henri you had broken your wrist and his only comment was he hoped it didn’t prevent you from signing checks! Typical View attitude. Dance Index is more sympathetic. View’s new issue is shocking! I think they are in pursuit of another “banning.”
« • »
View: A literary magazine published from 1940 to 1947 by Charles Henri Ford and Parker Tyler.
Eliot: T. S. Eliot (1888–1965), American-born English poet. TW is referring to Eliot’s Four Quartets (written between 1935 and 1941), published as a set in New York in 1943.
Dance Index: Donald Windham and TW both spent time working in the Dance Index office. This letter was written on Dance Index stationery.
27. TL—1
[June 1944] [Norfolk]
DEAR TENN—
2 wks mors of the damn splint so here is a short
one with the left
poem is nice ill try to place it in accent
george’s photo very fine will frame it up
thanks a million we can use it in some
book some time
i think a little note from webster would be
fine just a few words for the use of the
name your own preface much better than
anything she could write.
the play is still being set up very slow
local printer
therell be some money coming for that so
let me know when you need it—$100 anyway
and where are the short stories?
be good to yourself
J
[This letter is reproduced here as typed by JL with one hand.]
28. TLS—2
[July 1944] [Provincetown, Massachusetts]
DEAR JAY:
Just between us, the play [Battle of Angels] was never copyrighted. I always put copyrighted on my Ms. though they never really are. I think it will suffice to follow that procedure—just put “protected by copyright” and lightning won’t strike us for lying—I hope.
This is a very unreal sort of summer. Do you ever have periods like that in which reality seems to have entirely withdrawn? It is not necessarily unpleasant—it creates irresponsibility, more vagueness than usual—a new sense of proportions or the lack of them. Usually it only occurs in summer and on the ocean.—It happened to me once in California—Laguna Beach just before the war. I called it Nave Nave Mahana, after the painting by Gauguin. It doesn’t interfere with work—I have done a good deal on a long play but it makes your work seem more smokey more cloudy than it even is. And you are impatient with words. They seem the most unreal things a man can work with. Sometimes a storm blows up and enormous birds rush over—that’s what you are waiting and enduring for. In between times everything is unbelievably pink shrimpish. What comes, what is coming?
I have just returned from the beach and a fish supper—maybe I am writing in a sun-stroke.
I am still living here on my Hollywood savings, the one grand intact—I’m saving it for a probable flight to Mexico in the Fall. I may need the money for the play late this summer. When I do, I’ll wire you for it.
Saw Charles and Chilly Death and Charles’ mother—one day they drove up the Cape and took me to lunch. First time I ever saw a thoroughly intimidated southern matron. Chilly was on his high horse, complained so bitterly about lunch that Madame paid the entire bill to conciliate him.—This was the only high society incident of my season and I greedily absorbed enough of it to last me a while. Yes, I find the same charm you do in Charles—a negro charm I call it. I think he is rather like a piss-elegant mulatto, which is really quite charming. Since there is a heart underneath.
As for printing Charles’ book, of course that is entirely a matter of your own discretion and choice. I find his work phenomenally uneven. I have read things which were right out of heaven and others—there is [a] Broadway term “from Dixie” which means real corn. However I think he is an important literary figure mostly through his magazine. If only he were not so biased against anything non-magical, View—because of its exploratory ardor—might be the only exciting magazine in America. (Pharos being still at the mercy of the Mormons.) I have great hopes for resurgence of experimental writing and journals and theatre after the war—View might have a prodigious future, if only Charles could achieve a more comprehensive taste and less egocentricity—I liked the last issue. If I go to Mexico, how about letting me dig up some Mexican material for an issue of Pharos if you can get it past the Mormons? Would I have to know Spanish?—I don’t. But plan to study it.
I am planning to stay here through September, except, for a week of library research at Cambridge (Harvard)—It is too expensive to return to New York before I am ready to leave the East Coast. Perhaps you will come up on the Cape? I will have a cabin and could put you up here. Practically the entire lunatic fringe of Manhattan are among the summer colonists at P-town.
10
« • »
a long play: The Gentleman Caller, which TW later titled The Glass Menagerie.
negro charm: See note to TW letter to JL of 4/14/44.
at the mercy of the Mormons: The first issue of Pharos was delayed for almost a year because the Mormon printers in Utah felt that Battle of Angels was a “sinful text.”
29. TLS—2
[summer 1944] [Provincetown]
DEAR JAY:
Got your letter and Webster’s in the same post.
[ . . . ]
You ought to hear from Webster pretty quickly. Her address is Bay Head, Martha’s Vineyard, Mass. Wire her if she is not meeting the dead-line. She is a hard-working woman, that is what I like about her.
Sorry this is so messy. The fog has gotten in the machine and it seems to be dissolving. I am delighted with the new item for my gallery!
Have been reading Henry Miller’s Tropics—How can a thing be so brilliant and still not good?
Tennessee
My address is:
Captain Jack’s Wharf,
Provincetown, Mass.
« • »
Henry Miller’s Tropics: In a 1938 Time magazine interview, JL announced that he would publish Tropic of Cancer, first published in Paris by Obelisk Press in 1934 but widely considered obscene. This caused JL’s aunt, Leila Laughlin Carlisle, to threaten to withdraw her periodic (but crucial) financial support of ND. Tropic of Cancer was finally published in the United States in 1961 by Barney Rosset’s Grove Press.
Captain Jack’s Wharf: Where TW lived in Provincetown during his first summer there in 1940 and later when he was working on A Streetcar Named Desire in 1947.
30. TLS—1
[summer 1944] [New York]
DEAR JAY:
I figured you weren’t in a hurry for the play proofs [Battle of Angels] so I left them at your town office saying you would pick them up when you returned here. I will phone them today that you want them sent to Cambridge.
[ . . . ]
Have met an editor of Town & Country who thinks he might could use one of my stories so I dug them all out of the trunk for him last week and read them aloud. They are al
l so sloppy, but some have very interesting material and exciting passages. Trouble is characters are usually up to something nobody does out[side] of pirated or smuggled editions. Though it is all such sweeter and cleaner than Miller! I figure it would take two months’ concentrated effort to get, say, eight of them into printable shape, but I may do that alternately with the poetic play I’m on. If only print seemed as alive to me as stage. Don’t you worry over the dull look of most print?—everyone who has seen the new play The Glass Menagerie here likes it, though I doubt it is for the commercial theatre. Haven’t gotten Margo’s report on it yet. As the title suggests—it is about the delicate feelings in life—that got broken.
The weather is nice, my nerves are better, but I am still reluctant to go back to Clayton and work.
Tenn
« • »
The Glass Menagerie: The first mention to JL, by name, of the play that launched TW’s Broadway career.
SECTION III
PF: When did you first see Menagerie, when it came to New York?
JL: No, he invited me to come to Chicago for the opening and that marvelous actress, what was her name? I don’t remember.
PF: Laurette Taylor?
JL: Laurette Taylor. She was really something, and the man, too, the man was good. They put the play across in Chicago. It was a tremendous performance on both parts and that awakened the Chicago critics, and they wrote about Tennessee. I went out there. I don’t know where we stayed or who else we saw, but it had an overwhelming theatrical power this play.
* * *
PF: In 1940 Tennessee had signed some agreement with Bennett Cerf?
JL: There was a contract.
PF: He knew there was a contract, and he knew there wasn’t anything he could do about it, but he felt bad and he wrote to her [Tennessee’s agent, Audrey Wood] and told her that “Laughlin was to do everything else” and then there’s a lovely paragraph where he gives his rationale—that he so much approved of your enterprise of encouraging young poets and he wanted to be involved in that and that Audrey had to understand that if sometimes this worked against his material advantage, that’s the way he wanted it.
The Luck of Friendship Page 7